Arctic terrestrial permafrost ecosystems store around 1,300 gigatonnes of carbon from organic sources, such as from the remains of plants. Sediments in oceans and river deltas contain a further 400 gigatonnes. Global warming, however, is taking its toll on this […]
One of the most striking discoveries in condensed matter physics over the past few years is that simply rotating one atomically thin crystal on top of an identical layer can create entirely new electronic behavior. This idea became famous in […]
Authors: María-Luisa Chas-Amil, Catedrática de Economía Aplicada, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and Julia María Touza, Professor of Environmental Economics, University of York As the flames advanced towards the village of Bédar, in the Almería province of Andalusia, the mayor […]
Artificial Intelligence • Computer science • Condensed matter • Materials • Quantum physics
Many of today’s electronic devices — from the semiconductors in your cell phone to the photovoltaic cells in your solar panels — are built on thin-film substrates. The thin film is an electronically conductive material while the substrate is an […]
Author: Marta Sánchez López, Postdoctoral researcher at Research Centre for Basque Language and Texts (CNRS-IKER) – Université Bordeaux Montaigne. She also collaborates with the The Bilingual Mind Research Group (Gogo Elebiduna), University of the Basque Country. In our daily life […]
As we saw in our last entry, we must grant Gabriel that he does not conceive of the spirit and spiritual as an “immortal soul” or any similar ghostlike entity, but rather as something grounded in human thought—more specifically, in […]
Condensed matter • DIPC Advanced materials • Materials • Quantum physics
When we study solid-state physics, we usually begin with crystals. In a crystal, atoms repeat in a strict and regular pattern, much like tiles on a bathroom floor. Because every small region looks the same as every other, electrons move […]
Biochemistry • Chemistry • DIPC Biochemistry • Medicine • Nanotechnology
When you hear the word nanoparticle, it might sound like something futuristic or abstract. In reality, nanoparticles—tiny structures tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair—are already part of modern medicine. Some are used to […]
Astronomers have discovered potentially the most massive black hole ever detected. The cosmic behemoth is close to the theoretical upper limit of what is possible in the universe and is 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the centre […]
Authors: Adam Brumm, Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University; Basran Burhan, PhD Candidate, Archaeology, Griffith University; Gerrit (Gert) van den Bergh, Researcher in Palaeontology, University of Wollongong; Maxime Aubert, Professor of Archaeological Science, Griffith University, and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Professor in Geochronology […]
Author: Subir Sarkar, Emeritus Professor, Department of Physics, University of Oxford According to our best understanding, the universe is expanding – and is doing so at an accelerating rate. This is believed to be caused by something called the “cosmological […]
For decades, Alzheimer’s research has been dominated by a seemingly intuitive idea: the disease is largely explained by the accumulation of abnormal proteins in the brain, primarily beta-amyloid and tau. However, while this view has been useful, it has fallen […]
Auhtors: Samantha Lawler, Associate Professor, Astronomy, University of Regina and Aaron Boley, Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia A giant mirror to create “sunlight on demand” was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), despite […]
Chimeric antigen-specific receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA; BCMA-CAR T cells) has produced remarkable clinical responses in advanced multiple myeloma (MM), with a substantial fraction of patients achieving complete remission . However, many patients relapse within months […]
A few weeks after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, many scientific institutions felt the need to issue public statements against that war. At the time, I was president of the Commission for the History of Physics within […]