Human sperm are famously good swimmers, yet the physics of their motion has puzzled scientists for decades. Thick cervical mucus or lab-made gels should throttle any cell only fifty microns long, but sperm shoot through with surprising ease.
That puzzle finally cracked when a Kyoto University team revealed that the sperm tail’s internal mechanics side step Newton’s third law, the rule that demands an equal pushback for every push forward.
Their leader, Kenta Ishimoto of the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, worked with colleagues Clément Moreau and Kento Yasuda to pin down the trick: a property they call odd elasticity, measured by a new “odd elastic modulus.”
Sperm tails and physics
At our scale a swimmer throws water backward and glides forward in balance. Shrink the scene a thousand times and inertia vanishes, leaving syrup thick drag called low Reynolds number flow.
One flick of a tiny flagellum usually stalls before it starts, so the cell must wiggle in a non reciprocal pattern that never repeats in reverse.
Newton’s equal and opposite law assumes forces act in isolated pairs without added energy.
But sperm tails aren’t passive springs, they’re powered by molecular motors that constantly inject energy into the system. That disrupts the clean symmetry Newton envisioned.
What the team actually measured
Ishimoto’s group used high speed video of human sperm and the green alga Chlamydomonas, both of which swim with whip-like flagella.
They tracked the tail’s position over time and mapped those shapes into a two dimensional coordinate system known as “shape space.” These patterns form stable loops, called limit cycles, that repeat every beat
To link movement to internal forces, the researchers created an elastic matrix for the flagellum. The off-diagonal parts of this matrix, normally ignored in passive systems, revealed long-range, non reciprocal forces within the tail.
These are captured in the odd elastic modulus, a measure of how the tail deforms without a mirrored pushback
Sperm tail elasticity explained
In sperm tails, a single localized bend sends tension through the entire tail. But instead of balancing out, these forces add energy that moves the next bend forward. The result is a traveling wave, one that moves without causing an equal push in the opposite direction
The study shows that the tail’s odd elasticity directly controls the wave’s speed and efficiency. This isn’t just theoretical.
As the odd modulus increases, so does the propulsion velocity. That finding aligns with observed beat frequencies in human sperm, which can cycle at about 20 times per second.
How the math changes the game
In classical mechanics, elastic materials deform and then recover, storing energy like springs. Odd elasticity breaks this loop. Work done in one stroke isn’t recouped in the next, it drives the system forward.
Near the tail’s steady-state motion, the team found that the standard, symmetric (even) part of the modulus essentially vanished. Only the odd part mattered
This behavior stays consistent even when randomness is added. The researchers tested what happens when the tail’s beat fluctuates. Surprisingly, the sperm still swam efficiently. That suggests that the linear odd modulus governs swimming stability in noisy or sticky environments
Algae, robots, and medicine
Chlamydomonas cells move with two flagella that beat in asymmetrical strokes. Even with these different mechanics, the model held.
That points to a shared strategy in many swimming cells: generate odd elasticity and let the non-reciprocal forces do the work
This insight could be used in soft robotics. Imagine tiny bots navigating the bloodstream or crawling through mud, not with motors, but by waving internal fibers tuned with odd modulus dynamics. The model gives a playbook for how to build them.
Why sperm tails matter
Newton’s third law still works, just not in systems that continually absorb and expend energy. What sperm demonstrate is that when you’re far from equilibrium, you don’t have to obey force symmetry anymore. Cells that swim, flap, or twist with internal motors all bypass this constraint
The paper also shows that you can blend fluid and solid mechanics into a single, unified theory.
The tail’s odd elasticity doesn’t just describe motion, it connects elasticity, internal energy, and hydrodynamics into one model that can apply to many other living systems
How cells tune their elasticity on the fly is still unclear. Sperm likely adjust their stiffness in response to chemical signals during the journey to the egg. Mapping how molecular motors distribute themselves could help decode this control system.
Another big question is how viscosity affects swimming. Sperm can face cervical mucus thousands of times thicker than water.
This model hints that tuning the odd modulus helps sperm compensate for the extra drag, but measuring it in live tissue remains a challenge.
Nature doesn’t break physical laws, it rewrites the assumptions they rely on. In the micro world, sperm swim not by brute force, but by flexing internal springs in asymmetric ways that push without pushback. And that’s how they get ahead.
The study is published in PRX Life.
—–
Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
KARACHI: Karachi Traffic Police have issued a comprehensive traffic diversion plan for the central Chehlum procession of Hazrat Imam Hussain, scheduled for Friday, August 15, 2025. A press release from the office of the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Traffic) Karachi confirmed that the main procession will depart from Nishtar Park, following its traditional route before concluding at Hussainia Iranian Imambargah.
To ensure security, MA Jinnah Road will remain closed from Guru Mandir to Tower throughout the event.
For District Central, traffic coming from Nazimabad will be diverted from Lasbela Chowk to Nishtar Road via Garden. Vehicles from Liaquatabad will turn right at Teen Hatti towards Lasbela Chowk or left towards Martin Road (Central Jail). Traffic from Hassan Square heading towards PPP Chowrangi will be redirected through the Jail Flyover to Kashmir Road, Society Light Signal, and via Jail Flyover to Teen Hatti and Nishtar Road.
In District East, traffic from Shahrah-e-Faisal towards Numaish will turn right at Society Light Signal to Kashmir Road. From Central Jail Gate (Jamshed Road) to Guru Mandir, traffic will be diverted via Bahadur Yar Jang Road and Soldier Bazaar.
For District South, traffic coming from Garden Zoo to MA Jinnah Road will either turn right at Uncle Sarya towards Gul Plaza or left towards Coast Guard and Holy Family Hospital.
Heavy traffic from Super Highway or Gulberg towards MA Jinnah Road will be diverted via Liaquatabad No. 10 to Nazimabad Chowrangi No. 2, Habib Bank Flyover, Estate Avenue, Sher Shah, and Mauripur, with the reverse route for return traffic. Commercial vehicles from National Highway may use Shahrah-e-Faisal, Rashid Minhas Road, Stadium Road, and other routes leading to Mauripur and back.
No vehicles will be allowed on the procession route beyond Guru Mandir Chowk, and only vehicles with a procession sticker on the windscreen will be permitted to enter via Shahrah-e-Quaideen.
Routes for procession participants include various paths from Nazimabad, Liaquatabad, Society Light Signal, and Gulistan-e-Johar/Gulshan-e-Iqbal, all heading towards Numaish. For vehicles carrying sabeel, niyaz, or tabeer, entry is allowed from Tower, Lyari Expressway Garden Interchange, or Bahadur Yar Jang Road.
The DIG Traffic Karachi stressed that no vehicles will be allowed to park along the procession route at any time during the event.
Indie games publisher Silver Lining Interactive has launched the Silver Bullet Programme, a new initiative that aims to “support and highlight independent game developers who are crafting the next generation of unforgettable gaming experiences.”
Announced alongside an explainer video on August 14, 2025, the Silver Bullet Programme offers indie developers up to $100,000 in development funding, tailored, collaborative publishing support, marketing, QA, and porting assistance, hands-on guidance from the publisher, and “total creative freedom.”
“The Silver Bullet Programme is all about backing untamed, original voices in gaming,” Silver Lining Interactive wrote in a press release announcing the initiative. “If you’re building something bold, beautiful, and just a little dangerous, we want to hear from you.”
The Spirit of the North publisher is looking for games that are focus grabbing, inherently shareable, and which have what it calls “the Riptide Effect” (the ability to pull in players in from the first moment and not let go).
“We’ve seen how games can change people’s lives, and we believe that these games often come from unexpected places like a garage, a bedroom, or a late-night passion project,” said Ross Griffith, head of marketing at Silver Lining Interactive.
“Silver Bullet was created to help weird and out-there games get the shot they deserve. We’re not here to change your game or vision into what we think is marketable, as we don’t believe that kind of publishing works anymore. We want to catch awesome games we might otherwise miss, and amplify them, support them, and help them reach the audience they were always meant for.
“When a developer has that kind of game, along with that drive, that tenacity, we want to stand beside them and say, ‘Let’s make this real.’”
Silver Lining Interactive is “actively looking to connect with developers” interested in the programme at Gamescom 2025, and will be holding a “Pitches and Pints” meet-up at The Corkonian pub in Cologne from 6:30pm CEST on August 21, 2025, for interested developers to find out more.
Those not attending Gamescom can find out more here.
Microsoft has admitted that the August patch Tuesday update might fail to install through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), but it’s ok, admins. Home users are “unlikely to experience this issue.”
Microsoft, which has laid off thousands of workers while pouring money into its AI investments, seems to have a problem when it comes to quality. The most recent Windows 11 24H2 patch was already throwing up a spurious event viewer message due to code under active development sneaking into production software
This latest issue is more serious, since the failure prevents installation of the update, which includes important security fixes.
According to Microsoft, “the August 12, 2025 Windows security update for Windows 11, version 24H2, might fail to install with error code 0x80240069 when installed via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).”
WSUS allows servers with the WSUS role to defer, selectively approve, and schedule updates for specific devices or groups across an organization. It is also deprecated, but, according to Microsoft, “it continues to be supported for production deployments, and receives security and quality updates.”
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced plans to pull driver synchronization using WSUS, but swiftly backtracked after “valuable feedback” from users.
There’s no indication of when Microsoft will resolve this latest issue. You can still install the patch manually, which will doubtless delight administrators who would like nothing more than to deal with affected devices this way. Alternatively, the company has made a group policy available to deal with the problem.
Microsoft said that “We are working to include the resolution in a future Windows update. Once the update with the resolution is released, organizations will not need to install and configure this Group Policy to address this issue. We will provide more information when it becomes available.”
One contributor to a Reddit thread of woe from users encountering the problem wrote, “If your org is sensitive to reboots, this is not going to be fun. and good luck getting 100% of your machines to pick up the reg hack reliably so they even have a chance to get the patch. MS is not cook’n with their Win 11 patches lately.” ®
It’s game time for streaming services: a growing number of streamers are betting on casual games as a way to keep viewers hooked when they’ve run out of things to watch.
Toronto-based Zone-ify added free casual games to its ad-supported streaming service in June. Last month, close to 70 casual games arrived on Happykids and Fawesome, two ad-supported streaming services run by streaming startup Future Today. And later this year, Netflix is expected to expand its own gaming efforts with what company executives have called party games — casual titles that could turn movie night into game night.
It’s not the first time that companies have tried to blur the lines between gaming and leanback entertainment. But while prior efforts were largely focused on turning streaming devices into would-be game consoles, this new push focuses much more on casual gaming. Think Connect 4, not Counterstrike.
Casual games have been a huge hit on mobile, where breakout hits like Candy Crush and Wordle, the uber-popular word game the New York Times acquired in 2022, have turned hundreds of millions of people who would never describe themselves as gamers into habitual players. Can the same happen in the living room? And what does it take for streaming services to have their Worlde moment and launch a title that gets tens of millions of people to play every day?
For this week’s edition of Lowpass, I chatted with Zone-ify’s chief content officer John Orlando and Volley CEO Max Child to find out. I also spent a little too much time playing casual games on my TV …
From Angry Birds to Bandersnatch
When I first heard about streamers adding casual games, I thought: here we go again.
Over the years, there have been many attempts to turn streaming into more than just passive entertainment. Roku, for instance, struck a partnership in 2011 to bring Angry Birds to its platform. At the time, Roku even released a limited-edition Angry Birds-themed streaming device.
Amazon released its first Fire TV device with an optional game controller in 2014. And when Nvidia entered the streaming device market with the Nvidia Shield in 2015, it initially didn’t even include a remote control in the box, with the company betting that the device would appeal to gamers first and foremost.
None of those efforts succeeded, for obvious reasons: hardcore gamers want powerful hardware and AAA titles, something that streaming devices simply couldn’t offer. And people who buy a Roku do so primarily to watch TV, not to play mobile games in their living room.
Netflix’s first attempt to expand beyond leanback viewing with interactive titles like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch failed, as well, in part because the titles lacked the stickiness and replayability of video games. “As a novelty, it’s incredibly fun to do those interactive things,” Orlando tells me. “But it’s not something that you want to do all the time.”
“Gaming is different,” Orlando says. “You’re going to keep playing for hours, and you’ll want to come back.”
Chances are you’ve never heard of Orlando’s Zone-ify service, which looks a bit like Tubi did 10 years ago: a few high-profile titles and lots of older catalog content you’ll likely find elsewhere, as well.
At this point, the company’s game library matches that vibe, with a bunch of knock-off versions of popular games like Connect 4 and Candy Crush, all of which can be played with a remote control. And yet, I quickly found myself sucked in, solving level after level in a game called Crazy Lot, which looks a lot like Rush Hour.
To add games to streaming, Zone-ify partnered with ES3, a company that has been building interactive advertising experiences for major media companies. However, this was the first time that a service used ES3’s tech for gaming inside a free streaming app. “I was shocked that there wasn’t another ad-supported video service that was doing it,” Orlando says.
Phones become dedicated second screens
Zone-ify didn’t remain the only ad-supported service with casual games for very long. In late July, Future Today announced that it was adding puzzles, word games, and things like pool and air hockey to its Happykids and Fawesome apps on Roku devices. And some time later this year, Netflix is expected to launch a first crop of party games.
“We want to reimagine what social engaging experiences can unfold in the living room,” said Jeet Shroff, Netflix’s vice president of game technology, at a Netflix Game Developers Conference event earlier this year.
Netflix’s party games are an extension of the company’s massive push into gaming, which also includes dozens of mobile games and cloud gaming to bring AAA titles to the TV. Netflix did scale back some of its more ambitious indie gaming efforts and closed down an in-house game studio last year. However, the company is still heavily invested in gaming as a whole, with its gaming head Alain Tascan telling reporters at the GDC event that Netflix was on its way to become the Netflix of gaming.
As part of those efforts, Netflix has built its own mobile game controller app. In the context of party games, that controller is poised to become a dedicated second screen, complete with prompts and clues that could make things like multiplayer quizzes more fun. “You have information that perhaps is only available to you,” Shroff said. “There’s all this amazing social gameplay that can unfold.”
Incorporating phones into TV-based game play works surprisingly well, according to Child, whose company Volley has been building voice-centric multiplayer games for smart TVs. “We were worried about the friction of having people go get their phones,” Child says. But in a world where people cling to their mobile devices all day, that worry turned out to be unfounded. “We found that people are happy to use their phone,” he says.
Volley makes use of phones to extend voice input to multiple players (few people own a TV with built-in far field microphones, and sharing a single voice remote can be awkward during a fast-paced game). For some games, they also offer dedicated controls: the company’s Jeopardy adaptation turns your smart phone into a buzzer, making the game feel a lot more like the real thing. “It really replicates that actual experience of being on the game show,” Child says.
Volley’s experience with games like Jeopardy seems to validate some of Netflix’s ideas. “The live multiplayer family game night experience is really compelling,” Child says. “You have kids playing with their parents, playing with their grandparents.” And once they start, they keep playing. “Our average session is well over an hour,” he says.
However, Child also cautions that bringing games to the TV can’t be a one-and-done kind of affair. Even for casual games, players want regular updates — something that may require streamers to treat games much like the rest of their content. “If a streaming service had only one show you wanted to watch, once you finished that show, you wouldn’t come back,” he says.
This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a column on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
There’s one word that strikes terror in the heart of a creative working on a MrBeast video: “cringe.”
If the world’s top YouTuber calls a video or idea “cringe,” it’s likely dead in its tracks.
MrBeast knows better than anyone what might spark a backlash among his millions of fans, a former staffer said. “If he doesn’t buy into it, it’s not going to work,” they said.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is known for turning YouTube videos into eye-popping spectacles. The 27-year-old creator has buried himself alive, put hundreds of contestants through endurance challenges, and sent a train barreling into a giant pit as an “experiment,” all in the name of viral content. With over 400 million subscribers on his main channel, $473 million in revenue last year across his businesses, and a reality show on Amazon Prime Video, Donaldson is in a league of his own.
So, what does it take to make a MrBeast video — many of which are filmed in Donaldson’s hometown of Greenville, North Carolina? To find out, BI interviewed nine former MrBeast workers and reviewed an internal production guidebook created a few years ago as the YouTuber’s team began expanding. The creatives spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak about the company.
What emerged was a portrait of a large-scale content operation that, in many ways, mirrors traditional Hollywood productions — only faster-paced and occasionally more chaotic. Donaldson rejects the notion of being an old-school studio head, and he has eschewed ideas rooted in legacy media. One example: The company previously referred to workers on MrBeast sets as “friends of friends” rather than production assistants. In other ways, his creative instincts align with more traditional Hollywood leaders. Even after investing thousands into a video, for instance, Donaldson will sometimes kill a project if it doesn’t meet his quality standards — much like major studios like Warner Bros. Discovery.
For creatives who make the journey out to Greenville, MrBeast offers competitive pay and an opportunity to move fast and break things.
“You’ll see a lot of former film and TV people dropping everything in their lives in order to move out to Greenville,” the former staffer said.
Here’s BI’s breakdown of what goes into making a MrBeast video, from start to finish:
Step 1: The idea factory
MrBeast takes brainstorming seriously. The creator, who employed about 350 people as of April, has a dedicated ideation team tasked with building a pipeline of potential video ideas.
The ideation team starts by conceptualizing a video title and thumbnail. They cast a wide net and scour YouTube for trending topics and keywords to identify buzzy concepts.
The team sketches out ideas and logs them in a database, then pitches the best ones to Donaldson and a team of creative leads. Hundreds of ideas are logged, but most never make it past this phase.
Another former staffer described the ideation team as a content lab.
“If you come up with enough ideas, you’re going to get those winning ones that are perfect for a viral engine,” they said.
This approach is similar to Hollywood’s traditional development process, said Paul Hardart, director of the entertainment, media, and technology program at NYU’s Stern business school.
“That’s sort of the top of the funnel,” Hardart said. “Writers and talent go and pitch ideas to network executives.”
Related stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Step 2: Is this video even feasible?
If Donaldson greenlights an idea, it’s handed to a group of creative producers for cost and feasibility planning. The company recently added a team dedicated to calculating feasibility, a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
Donaldson, right, is the host of “Beast Games,” which airs on Amazon Prime Video.
Eric Charbonneau/Amazon Prime Video via Getty Images
If the idea is too ambitious to execute, like a scheme to send MrBeast to space, it might get scrapped or put on the back burner. But creatives are careful not to kill an exciting idea prematurely. While staff members at Beast Industries — MrBeast’s company — may fear the word “cringe,” Donaldson has his own dreaded word: “no.” The boss does not like to be told that something can’t happen.
“Don’t just stop because one person told you no, stop when all conceivable options are exhausted,” Donaldson wrote in his production guide.
“‘No’ was the bad word,” the second former staffer said. “You try to save your ‘no’s.’”
If an idea is greenlit and assigned a budget, a producer — or group of producers — is enlisted to manage the project and ensure tasks like building a set and casting aligns with the initial creative vision.
At any given moment, MrBeast has multiple production teams working on different videos, labeled by letters: Team A, Team B, and so on. Depending on the complexity of the project and the number of segments involved, each video can staff anywhere from one to a dozen or more producers.
Those producers wear many hats. They maintain timelines and deadlines for all relevant departments, negotiate with contractors, work with camera, lighting, and audio teams, and ensure compliance with on-set protocols, among other duties. “At Beast, you have to be responsible for everything,” a third former staffer said.
This is typical of YouTube productions, whereas legacy media producers are often more specialized.
“YouTube producers are probably more Swiss Army knives, but in TV, they’re more scalpels,” said Daniel Rosenberg, a writer and producer who cofounded the branded entertainment firm Piro.
Step 3: The Greenville content machine
When building his business, Donaldson and the MrBeast team often came up with their own terms for production roles.
“This is not Hollywood and I do not want to be Hollywood,” Donaldson wrote in his production guide.
The company has a consistent team of workers who build sets, as well as a flurry of production assistants who initially were referred to as “friends of friends” because they were often locals with connections to MrBeast staffers. Friends of friends work on a variety of tasks, from on-set assistance to picking up producers from the Raleigh airport. They’re now part of a team referred to as the “task force.”
Related stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Creative staffers have been referred to as junior Tyler (or mini Tyler), referring to a worker who worked under creative lead Tyler Conklin, three former staffers said.
Depending on the production, a MrBeast video could feature hundreds of cameras on set, capturing a variety of angles (and individual contestants if it’s a challenge where they are facing off against each other). Lengthy video challenges in a nuclear bunker or grocery store would require lots of cameras to film every moment. The camera setup includes DSLRs held by camera operators and strategically placed GoPros.
“If you’re doing a video with 100 contestants, you need at least 100 cameras,” the third former staffer said. “For a really long challenge, there’s a ton of angles. Jimmy is very big on quantity over quality for filming to make sure nothing is missed if anything happens.”
A screen shows the set of “Beast Games.” Some of MrBeast’s videos involve 100-day challenges, with cameras rolling continuously.
Eric Charbonneau/Amazon Prime Video via Getty Images
By the time Donaldson and other on-camera talent arrive, most of the logistical heavy lifting is already done — which makes it all the more painful for producers if he pulls the plug at that point, deciding the video is no longer a channel fit. The process of determining a fit involves others, as well, a source familiar with the matter told BI. Donaldson listens to feedback from a range of people and considers factors like budget, virality, and the company’s quality standards when determining which projects move forward, they said.
Traditional media productions may similarly throw away work if they feel like it isn’t up to par, Hardart said, pointing to the decision to reshoot the Game of Thrones pilot episode.
Step 4: Cutting down hundreds of hours of footage into minutes
Some of MrBeast’s videos involve 100-day challenges, with cameras rolling all day and night. That produces a lot of footage.
A single video generally enlists up to eight editors, with a few staffers handling daily footage cuts, four or five syncing footage and selecting the best parts of what was filmed, and a couple of lead editors compiling everything.
For videos shot over a longer timeframe, edits are managed in real time.
“If they shoot a video for a week, by the time they get home or leave that island, they already have a very rough cut that someone is doing in real time,” a fourth former employee said.
With editing, the MrBeast team is very focused on how a video will retain viewership on YouTube, known as retention editing.
“He has very specific editing requirements for his editors, not just how much you get done or how fast, but how many seconds into a video are you showing the super funny thing that happens,” a fifth former staffer said.
Donaldson laid out this approach in his production guide, highlighting the importance of using YouTube analytics to identify the exact second when viewership drops off and telling workers that they “must always know what minute mark the content you are working on is.”
“Oftentimes the real storytelling happens in post” production, Hardart said of a traditional Hollywood production. “You can do so much in editing to shape a story.”
Step 5: Press publish, then study viewer data to find out if it worked
After a MrBeast video has a final cut that makes it to YouTube, it’s formatted for multiple languages, put through thumbnail A/B testing, and carefully monitored for viewer retention and performance. It may also be cut for shorter videos on TikTok or YouTube shorts or edited down for age-appropriate content so it can appear on YouTube Kids. MrBeast generally releases one to two longform videos monthly on his main channel, as well as a few videos on other channels focused on gaming or philanthropy. The creator also has a team dedicated to making shorter videos for vertical platforms like TikTok or YouTube shorts.
Donaldson wrote in his production guide that “the cool thing” about YouTube is that the platform gives “super detailed graphs for every video that show the exact second we lose a viewer on every single video.”
From setting up a team focused fully on ideas, to dissecting viewership data to plan his video strategy, Donaldson has laid out the blueprint for building a YouTube empire.
“I feel like in this day and age, so many content creators are trying to be him,” the first former staffer said. “But he will always be MrBeast. He has access to things that no one else does.”
Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at dwhateley@businessinsider.com or Signal at @danwhateley.94. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device;here’s our guide to sharing information securely.
The researchers then built a few sheets of nanocardboard to test the output of their model. The actual products, primarily made of chromium, aluminum, and aluminum oxide, were incredibly light, weighing only a gram for a square meter of material. When illuminated by a laser or white LED, they generated measurable force on a testing device, provided the atmosphere was kept sufficiently sparse. With an exposure equivalent to sunlight, the device generated more than it weighed.
It’s a really nice demonstration that we can take a relatively obscure and weak physical effect and design devices that can levitate in the upper atmosphere, powered by nothing more than sunlight—which is pretty cool.
But the researchers have a goal beyond that. The mesophere turns out to be a really difficult part of the atmosphere to study. It’s not dense enough to support balloons or aircraft, but it still has enough gas to make quick work of any satellites. So the researchers really want to turn one of these devices into an instrument-carrying aircraft. Unfortunately, that would mean adding the structural components needed to hold instruments, along with the instruments themselves. And even in the mesosphere, where lift is optimal, these things do not generate much in the way of lift.
Plus, there’s the issue of getting them there, given that they won’t generate enough lift in the lower atmosphere, so they’ll have to be carried into the upper stratosphere by something else and then be released gently enough to not damage their fragile structure. And then, unless you’re lofting them during the polar summer, they will likely come floating back down at night.
None of this is to say this is an impossible dream. But there are definitely a lot of very large hurdles between the work and practical applications on Earth—much less on Mars, where the authors suggest the system could also be used to explore the mesosphere. But even if that doesn’t end up being realistic, this is still a pretty neat bit of physics.
