Light can do more than illuminate matter. In some metal complexes, it can break chemical bonds in a highly controlled way, releasing specific molecules only when and where light is applied. This idea lies behind photoactivated chemotherapy, a strategy in which relatively inactive compounds become chemically reactive after irradiation. Ruthenium complexes are among the most […]
For more than two decades, the standard picture of the Universe has rested on a surprisingly simple idea. Space is expanding, galaxies are moving farther apart, and a mysterious ingredient called dark energy is driving that expansion to accelerate. In the simplest model, dark energy is constant through time, an unchanging property of empty space […]
Author: Victoria Guerra-García, PhD candidate at the University of the Basque Country, Dept. of Linguistics and Basque Studies (EHU) and member of The Bilingual Mind Research Group (Gogo Elebiduna) You’re in the middle of a conversation, and suddenly the word won’t come. You know exactly what you want to say, but you just can’t retrieve […]
Authors: Sarah Foster, Program Leader, Project Seahorse and Senior Researcher, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia and Amanda Vincent, Professor, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia Bottom trawlers extract one-quarter of the world’s fisheries catches by weight and raise significant ecological, economic and social concerns. Given that […]
Pressure is usually imagined as a force that simply squeezes matter into a smaller space. At the molecular level, however, the story is more subtle. A recent computational chemistry study explored how pressure changes the shapes of molecules and the fleeting structures known as transition states, which appear briefly as reactions occur. The work focused […]
Imagine trying to build a house without a blueprint, find a shortcut through an unfamiliar city without a map, or govern a large organisation with no leaders and no meetings. It sounds impossible. Yet tiny-brained ants, working without leaders or blueprints, have been solving problems like these for millions of years – and no, the […]
Isotope analysis of gas from geothermal springs in Zambia could show that a new continental rift is forming . Unexpectedly high helium isotope ratios indicate that a weakness in Earth’s crust has broken through to reach the mantle beneath. This rift could eventually become a new tectonic plate boundary. In the meantime, opportunities for geothermal […]
Two years ago, in March 2024, I wrote in this blog about a decision that surprised many: the rejection of the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch. After fifteen years of work by an international team of experts, the proposal to declare that we are now living in a new chapter of Earth’s history—one defined […]
Chirality is one of the most familiar ideas in science. Human hands are chiral because the left and right hand are mirror images that cannot be perfectly aligned on top of one another. The same idea appears in chemistry, where molecules with opposite handedness can behave very differently. In recent years, physicists have discovered that […]
Author: Howard Wiseman, Director, Centre for Quantum Dynamics, Griffith University As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso on her island. We can imagine that his wife, Penelope, would have asked him about […]