Let’s look for the perfect spot

In this week’s issue of Science News I have three articles, one short and two very short.

In Is Your Phone Out of Juice? I describe a new type of experimental fuel cell (aren’t all fuel cells experimental) that can run on any sugary drink and in principle could be mass-produced to be completely biodegradable.

How Smart Are Amoebas? tells about a bug’s hunting strategies. This bug is in fact a very unusual kind of slime mold, which can spend its entire life as a single-cell creature but in times of hardship can band together with its peers to form a multi-cellular one.

And just to prove that not all my articles have questions in their headlines, I wrote Meet Me at 79°50′ N, 56° W. This is about a proposal for one of the most bizarre physics experiments I have ever heard of: only twice a year, at two very precise locations — one in Greenland, one in Antarctica — the conditions will be just right for a small experiment that could overturn Newtonian physics and Einstein’s relativity in one swoop. To do this, you’ll have to locate the right spot with a precision of 7 centimeters and make sure to be there during an equinox.

Unfortunately, the latter two articles require a subscription. But hey, this could be a good time for you to subscribe to Science News and help support our reporters’ lavish lifestyles. (Alfred, get the limo ready please, I’m done writing.)