The long-awaited results from Fermilab’s g-2 experiment are finally here…and they confirm that the Standard Model—you know, the one that aims to explain the forces that shape our universe—may need some major reworking. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ » Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist​ » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com​ The muon is one of 12 elementary particles described by the Standard Model. This model aims to understand how each of these particles is affected by the universe’s four known forces—the strong, weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic. These twelve particles are divided into quarks and leptons, which are each further divided into six distinct “flavors.” Like electrons, muons are just one “flavor”…

Long considered one of the brightest stars in the night sky, Betelgeuse has begun to dramatically fade then brighten again for reasons we can’t quite pin down. And it’s caused some people to wonder if it’s about to explode. » Catch up on Constellations! https://bit.ly/3uKysSS​ » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com Despite being roughly 643 light-years away, Betelguese is nearly impossible to miss. For starters, it’s MASSIVE; so big that if it were at the center of our Solar System, it would engulf all the planets up to Jupiter. Its diameter is roughly 1,000 times that of our Sun! To find it, just look at…

Scientists are using Alan Turing’s theory about patterns to grasp a better understanding of nature’s hidden design; from tracking migrating birds, to conserving whale sharks across the world. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com​ » Catch up on Seeker Indie! https://bit.ly/3cpNPcf​ This is a short wildlife documentary about the fascinating Turing patterns in nature and how they may help endangered species around the world. The first half of the film introduces three characters, which will take us on a quest to explain who Alan Turing was and what is his connection with patterns in nature. The second part of the film is showing how these…

NASA wants a new type of space telescope. A team of scientists and engineers at NASA are developing ways to send ultra cold and ultra-large balloon telescopes to the edge of space, which could open up a brand new way of seeing the cosmos. »Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ »Watch more Focal Point | https://bit.ly/2s0cf7w​ » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin are practically synonymous with rockets… those massive, powerful vehicles allow us to travel beyond Earth. But while the ongoing competition to launch the world’s next best rocket tends to dominate news headlines, there’s a little-known mission at NASA to develop a new kind of space…

Life crawled out of the oceans onto land, right? New research suggests that this popular theory could be wrong. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ » Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist​ » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com We’ve had the idea that life began in the oceans since the 1920s when it was first put forward. This was cemented in our minds in the 1950s by the classic Miller-Urey experiment from which scientists hypothesized that the ocean-atmospheric cycle of early earth could have been the perfect conditions to instigate life … but there were many unanswered questions. Since then, biogenesis researchers—those are the folks who study how life began—have been kind of…

The summit of Mauna Kea is perfect for astronomy but it’s also regarded as one of the most sacred lands for Native Hawaiians. We get a look inside the two sides that have been debating about the construction of one of the largest ground telescopes in the world. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com On the island of Hawaii sits a dormant volcano named Mauna Kea. It’s the highest point in Hawaii, and if you measure from the seafloor, it’s the tallest mountain in the world. And this height, paired with a few other important elements, has made it home to numerous observatories. But, this…

Giant mech suits are the stuff of science fiction, but one inventor and his team are hoping to make them a reality. The result isn’t your typical mech, as these behemoths are built to race. Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ Watch more Focal Point | https://bit.ly/2s0cf7w​ Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com​ The machine itself started as an art project for Burning Man. Mechanical engineer, Jonathan Tippett, wanted to build a machine that celebrated human skill and augmented it using technology but still kept a human at the heart. From the original art project, the idea of a racing league or a sports mech evolved when Jonathan started to try and articulate…

Gravitons could bridge the divide between general relativity and quantum mechanics. But efforts to find these hypothetical particles have proved tricky — until now. Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker​ Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist​ Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com​ The renowned physicist Freeman Dyson suggested that a hypothetical detector sensitive enough to observe a single graviton would be so massive that the detector itself would collapse into a black hole. But what if we’re going about this the wrong way? What if instead of trying to find just one graviton, we search for a telltale sign that only a group of them can create? That’s what three researchers proposed in a paper…

When you think of the Plague, the Black Death of the 14th century, with its medieval cities overrun with rats and creepy plague masks, probably comes to mind. But the Plague isn’t a disease of the past; it’s still very much around. There are actually three major types of plague depending on what part of the body is affected. Septicemic, pneumonic, and bubonic, which is what we think of when we hear “the plague” since it’s the most common type. Symptoms may include fever, chills, body aches, nausea, and vomiting, all of which can usually take anywhere between one to seven days to pop up. But probably the most important…