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Tiny platform creates and directs microbubbles on demand
Set within a 3-millimeter area on a chip, the new device produces hydrogen gas bubbles on a grid of electrodes, then powers the bubbles up with acoustic energy through ultrasound.
Sperm whales blow bubbles to help them nap
The large toothed whales are known for their signature vertical sleeping skills.
Tiny bubbles could revolutionize inkjet printing
Ultra-fine bubbles may offer a cleaner way to perfect inkjet printing for next-generation electronics. By simply changing the number of bubbles in each droplet, researchers were able to dramatically reshape the final printed pattern without leaving behind unwanted chemical residues.
Hidden in bubbles: Scientists discover how sneaky seals dodge tourists
"These wet, less accessible and inconspicuous domes may not only provide refuge against human disturbance but also play a role as resting sites."
One possible recipe for life on Titan is a bust
An experiment mimicking conditions on the Saturn moon suggests that cell-like bubbles don’t form in methane lakes, puncturing hopes for alien life.
These Unsinkable Tubes Could Help Harvest Energy From the Ocean
Researchers developed aluminum structures that trap air bubbles, making them able to float perpetually in even the harshest environments.
How Drinking Tea the ‘Right’ Way Boosts Health Benefits, According to a New Study
Brewed is better than bottles and bubbles.
Microsoft counters the MacBook Neo with freebies for students
PC makers are discounting laptops and bundling Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions.
Brookfield couple launches natural detergent business
If you’re looking for a softer laundry detergent for your young family, look no further than Brookfield’s Beba Bubbles.
Can the so-called nanobubbler save the Reflecting Pool?
The $1.7 million “ozone nanobubbler” being used in an effort to make the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool water crystal clear has a unique ability to shoot 500 million microscopic bubbles into every teaspoon of water. The injected oxygen is supposed to oxidize — or, unscientifically speaking, smash through — algae, bacteria and other chemicals.
Sunbird relaunched its iMessage app for Android users after three years away
Blue bubbles for Android are back.
‘A place where everyone felt welcome,’ New KC business offers sensory-friendly play for kids with autism
Bubbles and Goo opened in Kansas City's River Market to offer sensory-friendly slime play for families affected by autism.
World War II Memorial in Washington vandalized with bubbles and graffiti
The vandalism comes weeks after President Donald Trump said the nearby Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was deliberately damaged
Google rolls out Motion Assist bubbles to Pixel, Samsung
After announcing earlier this month, Google has rolled out Motion Assist to Pixel and Samsung phones running Android 17.
PHOTO: Bubbling with science
Members of the Sunnyside High School Science Club help young scientists create giant bubbles as the club’s Water Science Camp comes to a close on Sept. 26, 2026, in Sunnyside,
Women in business meet in empowerment symposium
The East St. Tammany Business Alliance recently held their Business & Bubbles Women’s Empowerment Symposium at the Harbor Center, an annual women-focused, signature event that brings together women in business
July/August 2026: Science history from 50, 100 and 150 years ago
Natural fission reactor uncovered; geometry of soap bubbles
ICON Park’s newest entertainment puts guests inside giant bubbles
Spheres Bubble Show is led by Blaise Ryndes, a four-time Guinness World Record holder and former America’s Got Talent contestant known for his innovative bubble artistry.
Scientists just found a chilling way life may have begun
New experiments suggest that freezing and thawing on early Earth may have helped primitive cell-like structures grow and evolve. Tiny lipid bubbles behaved very differently depending on their membrane makeup—some fused into larger compartments and captured DNA more efficiently. These fusion events could have mixed key molecules, setting the stage for more complex chemistry.
Blowing bubbles helps resting sperm whales avoid floating to the surface
They are the only whales known to rest vertically in the water, with their heads pointing upward.
The Streaming Bubble Keeps Popping
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) One of my rules is “never bet against PE [private equity]”. This isn’t to say that I agree with their methods or tactics or strategies or financial innovations (aka shenanigans). Just that in the long arc of financial history, they’ve tended to return very good returns to their shareholders. That said, their forays into entertainment have left me...skeptical. I’ve written before about PE’s production company/celebrity production company roll ups, and those haven’t really worked out. Some PE groups tried to “roll up” an industry that isn’t “roll-up-able” for lack of a better term—since the barrier to entry for starting a production company is very low—often paying top dollar for celebrity production companies at the height of streaming valuations. So yeah maybe we can bet against PE when they venture into filmed entertainment. I’ve also noted that studio lots seemed to be a bubble back in 2022. Sure enough… Yikes! That sure sounds like some private equity guys lost some money. The only caveat being that holding a lot of land in Los Angeles is always valuable. But that wasn’t the pitch and likely real estate investment companies overpaid for said land. I mean, Goldman Sachs had to repossess it after all. (Technically, I’m not sure these buyers were traditional private equity, but PE was buying LA studio lots earlier this decade.) All to say: I call out bubbles when I see them, and they often pop. Anywho, my most famous bubble call was the “streaming bubble”, specifically that the major streamers were making too many shows and films. And that it could all come crashing down. Notably, I made this call before the strikes of 2023, but those strikes potentially accelerated the popping. And now it has indeed popped. One of my most popular articles of last year made that exact case. A year later, it’s time to update that analysis. The bottom line is that the streaming contraction continues. Credit where credit is due, Luminate—an analytics company whose data I use weekly in my streaming ratings report—called this out in a recent report I saw highlighted in both Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter. But I’m adding my data to their look, including streaming films and kids TV shows. I’ll also provide some other data that all tells the same picture. Let’s dive in! Subscribe The Number of Streaming TV Shows, Films and Specials Is Declining AGAIN in 2026 Let’s get right to the data, starting with my dataset. Specifically, each week I track every “notable” title to come out on streaming. I try to grab every title on every major streamer, meaning if it’s a first run or original or exclusive, I track it. This helps me call out the “dogs not barking” and the misses/flops each week. So that will be our first series of charts, my weekly collection data. Let’s start with the raw TV show, film and special data, by week. Note: As the years have gone by, I have actually added more sources (going from just one source to five sources) to find new titles, meaning that this data collection is, likely, more accurate now than in the past. Which means my team and I are more likely to have undercounted titles in the past rather than today. I like to cut the data several different ways. Here’s that same look, by quarter, to more sharply show the trends: And here’s the data just looking at the first half of each year. That’s the same data, just cut three different ways with three different time periods. Note that films, TV shows, and specials are all down by 25%, 42% and 17%, respectively, from 2022. The good news is that the number of films and specials actually increased year-over-year from 2025 to 2026, but not enough to offset the 25% decline in TV shows. Now, I also look at kids shows, and here they are pulled out on their own: And here’s that by quarter: This really seems to be a notable area of pullback by the streamers. Kids shows are down 80% from 2022. This reflects some formerly Disney+ shows going to cable TV first, but also pullbacks from HBO Max, Prime Video and Netflix. I also categorize the TV shows by English language and non-English language, and that also reveals a lot of where the drop comes from: And here is by the half-year: In this look, the good news is the drop for English language shows seems to have stabilized in the last year. But the bad news is the long term decline from the 2022 peak. Other Data So I wasn’t the only person to notice this decline in the number of shows. I have a few other data sources for this, though most only go through the end of 2025. As I said, Luminate beat me to the punch, so let’s look at their data. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… What TV loss streaming didn’t make up for... How Netflix has changed their programming slate over time… Ten more images charting the decline of production... What type of films aren’t being made anymore... The good news (for movie theaters)… And more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
A surprising foam discovery could change everyday products
Foams have long baffled scientists because liquid drains from them far sooner than theory predicts. New research shows the reason: the bubbles don’t stay put—they rearrange, opening pathways for liquid to escape. The key factor is the pressure needed to shift bubbles, not just push liquid through them. This insight reshapes how we understand foams and could improve everyday products.
Gemini for Android using Bubbles to let you multitask & continue chats
After adding Dynamic Color earlier this month, the Gemini overlay on Android is now using Bubbles to help keep track of conversations.
Trump admin uses hydrogen peroxide, tiny bubbles against Reflecting Pool algae
Algae has plagued the site for more than 100 years, but Trump set his sights on addressing it as part of his aggressive push to beautify Washington
Scientists discover the hidden physics behind how words spread
Scientists discovered that language change follows hidden statistical patterns similar to the physics of magnets and soap bubbles.
Fun Science Projects: Elephant Toothpaste, Unpoppable Bubbles
Emily Calandrelli, science advocate and bestselling author, joins TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones to share some easy experiments from her upcoming book “Stay Curious and Start Exploring.”
Check your physics knowledge with our bumper end-of-year quiz
Try our new interactive end-of-year quiz compiled by Colin White
The science behind giant bubbles at Discovery Lab
Discovery Lab explains the science behind giant bubbles and shares what makes its special bubble mixture stronger and more flexible.
What science tells us about the algae bloom in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Algal blooms are not maintenance failures requiring paint or treatment with hydrogen peroxide and nanobubbles. They are ecological warning signs.
Beat the winter blues with these North Fork spots serving entertainment with each pour
While the chilly weather drags on, lots of North Fork vineyards and breweries are still buzzing. Beat the winter blues with some live music paired with bevs and bubbles at these groovy spots: Suhru & Lieb Vineyards, 13050 Oregon Road, Cutchogue, 631-734-1110 Every Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. until March catch various musicians like...
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab is creating one of the weirdest forms of matter in space
NASA’s upgraded Cold Atom Lab is turning the International Space Station into a frontier for quantum research, creating ultra-cold matter that behaves in astonishing ways. The experiments could unlock new discoveries about the universe while paving the way for powerful future technologies in space and on Earth.
Scientists Witness Water Transforming Into a Weird 'Glass' Instead of Ice
What's going on?
WhatsApp Rolls Out Redesigned Message Bubbles for iOS
WhatsApp is rolling out a new design for message bubbles on iOS, reports WaBetaInfo. The platform's message bubbles are rounder than before with a softer shape – similar to iMessage – while shared media files appear without the original borders, giving them a cleaner look. The platform's message bubbles are rounder than before with a softer shape – similar to iMessage – while shared media files appear without the original borders, giving them a cleaner look.
Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose From Non-Living Matter TWICE
The tree of life may split at the roots.
Trump admin investigating graffiti and soap bubbles at World War II Memorial
The Interior Department is investigating vandalism at the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, after neon graffiti was painted on the Atlantic Pavilion and the usually clear fountains overflowed with soapy bubbles.
Scientists Created Hydrogel ‘Micromachines’ That Could Revolutionize Medicine
The extracellular matrix, a complex 3D structure made of proteins and sugars, is essential for healing wounds and homeostasis.
Multitasking ‘Bubbles’ now live in Android 17 Beta 3 update
It might be unfair to say that Android 17 Beta 3’s Bubbles are a new feature, but the premise has...
MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.
‘The tools to imagine solutions’: Science educator inspires Pakistani children
Science Fuse, a social enterprise, primarily teaches children in impoverished areas, including the Machar Colony slum area in Karachi.
First Signatures of a Future Tectonic Split Are Bubbling Up In Zambia
The world has not stopped changing.
World War II Memorial in Washington vandalized with bubbles and graffiti, upsetting Trump
The memorial was vandalized Thursday, with bubbles filling a fountain and “Clean hands dirty $” written in red paint.
Scientists Analyzed Air Bubbles Frozen in Ice. They’re Full of Warning Signs for Humanity.
While hydrogen itself doesn’t trap greenhouse gases, its interaction with other gases can indirectly heat the atmosphere 11 times faster than carbon dioxide does.
Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed
Also: Cyborg diving suits for cockroaches, why sleepy sperm whales blow bubbles, Betelgeuse's companion star.
Scientists found two powerful new ways to destroy forever chemicals
Scientists are testing two promising ways to destroy PFAS, the stubborn “forever chemicals” that can accumulate in water and resist normal treatment. One method uses collapsing vapor bubbles to generate extreme heat and reactive molecules, while the other uses cold plasma and rising gas bubbles to pull PFAS to the surface and break them apart.
Sunbird launches its iMessage for Android app, expecting you to trust it in the name of blue bubbles
Sudden life has been breathed into the iMessage for Android messaging app, Sunbird, after hanging out in a purgatorial beta...
How everyday foam reveals the secret logic of artificial intelligence
Foams were once thought to behave like glass, with bubbles frozen in place at the microscopic level. But new simulations reveal that foam bubbles are always shifting, even while the foam keeps its overall shape. Remarkably, this restless motion follows the same math used to train artificial intelligence. The finding hints that learning-like behavior may be a fundamental principle shared by materials, machines, and living cells.
Law of 'maximal randomness' explains how broken objects shatter in the most annoying way possible
A new mathematical equation describes the distribution of different fragment sizes when an object breaks. Remarkably, the distribution is the same for everything from bubbles to spaghetti.
Lantheus completes sale of SPECT business
Lantheus has signaled that the decision to sell its SPECT business will allow the company to focus more on growing its portfolio of PET radiodiagnostics and microbubbles.
Google Messages is finally fixing two of its most annoying quirks
These fixes should have arrived years ago