One of the cinematic highlights of 2023 was director Takashi Yamazaki's gloriously grounded kaiju epic, Godzilla Minus One, which became a major international hit and snagged an Oscar for best visual effects. Yamazaki is back this fall with the hotly anticipated sequel, Godzilla Minus Zero. Toho just dropped the full IMAX trailer, featuring not just our beloved Godzilla, but also a distinctive roar that teases the appearance of none other than the three-headed King Ghidorah.

(Spoilers for the 2023 film below.)

Godzilla Minus One focused on kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima, who struggled with survivor's guilt after he failed to take action when Godzilla attacked the Japanese base on Odo Island in 1945. Knocked unconscious, Kōichi woke to find he was one of only two survivors—and the other, a mechanic named Tachibana, was furious about it. His parents and many others were killed in the World War II bombing of Tokyo. Kōichi rebuilt a life with a woman named Noriko and the orphaned baby she rescued, Akiko. But then Godzilla re-emerged, and Kōichi resolved to die fighting the monster to atone for Odo Island.

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In 2007, a piece of space debris punched a bullet-like hole through the radiator panel of the US space shuttle Endeavor. The shuttle program ended in 2011, but the space debris problem has only intensified as we launch more and more satellite constellations, telescopes, and spacecraft into orbit. That's why Chinese scientists have devised a new aluminum material inspired by eggshells that they believe could offer enhanced protection against debris fragments, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Applied Physics.

Eggshells have long fascinated scientists because of their mechanical properties. For instance, it's well known that cracking an egg requires applying just enough force to the center to achieve a clean break without completely shattering the shell. In 2012, MIT mechanical engineer Pedro Reis co-authored a paper demonstrating the link between an egg's ovoid geometry and its rigidity, a major factor when predicting how much force an object can endure before cracking. (As I wrote for Slate at the time, rigidity is related to, but distinct from, strength. If one eggshell has tiny cracks and the other doesn't, both shells have different strengths—the cracked one will break more easily—but the same rigidity.)

Reis started studying eggshells after participating in a popular physics demonstration: walking on cartons of eggs without breaking them. The key, he learned, was to align the eggs with their narrow tip (the most crack-resistant part) pointing up, and then carefully place one's feet to distribute one's weight over the entire surface area. This ensures that no single egg is overloaded. While it takes around 5.5 pounds of force to crack an egg, that depends on the direction in which the force is applied, as well as its distribution over the shell's surface.

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