A Long Day on Uranus, a Better Method of Making Coffee and Dinos Fossils in Decline

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Caffeine-motivated researchers find that pour height may be the key to a perfect cup of coffee. A new study of plastics finds that less than 10 percent of such products are made with recycled materials. And once the plastics are used, only 28 percent of them make it to the sorting stage—and only half of that plastic is actually recycled. Data from the Hubble Telescope show how a day on Uranus lasts longer than previously thought. Plus, we discuss how scientists thought dinosaurs were in decline even before their mass extinction—until now. Recommended reading: Challenging Big Oil’s Big Lie about Plastic Recycling A Day on Uranus Is Longer Than We Thought, Hubble Telescope Reveals The Horned and Armored Dinosaurs Were the Gladiators of the Mesozoic E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people.
0:37.3	Happy Monday listeners.
0:39.1	For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.
0:42.8	Let's catch up on some of the science news you might have missed last week.
0:53.8	We'll ease into things with a new study on a subject that's bound to perk you up.
0:58.4	Coffee. Up until now, the best way to learn more than you ever wanted to know about pour over coffee
1:03.5	was to ask literally any guy at a party in Brooklyn. But a study published last week in the journal
1:08.7	Physics of Fluids bring some actual science
1:11.2	into debates over how to brew the perfect pot of Joe.
1:16.3	Using transparent silica gel particles in place of coffee grounds, researchers captured
1:20.7	high-speed footage showing exactly how water flows through a pourover setup under different
1:25.4	conditions. They determined that the best way to brew a
1:28.6	strong cup of coffee was to maximize the contact time between water and coffee grounds, while also
1:33.9	allowing for plenty of mixing so as much coffee as possible was extracted. The team says the key is to pour
	...

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