Category archives: Science

How to study magnetic Weyl fermions experimentally

How to study magnetic Weyl fermions experimentally

ChemistryCondensed matterQuantum physicsTheoretical physics

By DIPC

Imagine there exist a material in which an electron could be split into two quasiparticles. These two quasiparticles both would carry electric charge, move in opposite directions but could not move backwards. Furthermore these quasiparticles would be massless. And we can give them a fancy name, Weyl fermions. This seems to be at odds with […]

Melodrama with happy ending for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients

Melodrama with happy ending for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients

BiologyBiomedicineGeneticsMedicinePharmacy

By Sergio Laínez

Patients suffering from rare diseases (defined by the European as those affecting less than 5 in 10000 people) have traditionally been overlooked by pharmaceutical companies. They are usually looking for the next blockbuster drug, so the lack of a large patient pool means they may not generate the revenue needed to justify the R&D financial […]

Quantum dots embedded in graphene nanoribbons

Quantum dots embedded in graphene nanoribbons

ChemistryCondensed matterMaterialsNanotechnology

By DIPC

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (<50 nm). Graphene ribbons were introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine the edge and nanoscale size effect in graphene. GNRs are very interesting structures, partly due to their attractive electronic properties. Those properties vary dramatically with changes in the […]

Why we almost certainly <i>do not</i> live in a simulation ? (&2)

Why we almost certainly do not live in a simulation ? (&2)

Philosophy of science

By Jesús Zamora Bonilla

In the previous entry , I described Nick Bostrom’s argument for the ‘simulation hypothesis’, i.e., the conjecture that we are very, very likely living not in a ‘real’ world, but within some kind of computer simulation, and ended offering some skeptical doubts about its structure by comparing it to Bertrand Russell’s prankish argument about whether […]

Mediterranean diet and brain shrinkage

Mediterranean diet and brain shrinkage

BiologyHealthNeurobiology

By José Ramón Alonso

The Mediterranean diet is a modern nutritional reference originally inspired by the dietary patterns of Greece, Southern Italy, and Spain in the 1940s and 1950s. The main components of this diet include proportionally high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits, and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products […]

Quantifying the screening of electrons in graphene heterostructures

Quantifying the screening of electrons in graphene heterostructures

Condensed matterMaterialsPhysicsQuantum physics

By DIPC

Beginning in 1928, Felix Bloch, an assistant to Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig, began to make some realistic assumptions in an attempt to formulate a more complete quantum mechanics of electrical conductivity. First, because he wanted to assign a definite momentum and energy to each of the electrons, but not a definite position or a time […]