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First living cochlea outside the body unlocks secrets of hearing

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 2 min Home Have you ever wondered how your ears can pick up the faintest whisper yet also handle loud music without damage? Scientists at Rockefeller University have achieved a remarkable feat : they kept […]

The intertwined nature of electronic waves in 2D TiSe<sub>2</sub> crystals

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 3 min Home When we peel a crystal down to its very last layer, the physics governing its behavior undergoes a radical shift. This transition from the bulk (three-dimensional) to the two-dimensional limit is where […]

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 5 min Home Author: Steven Gillespie, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool Psychopaths might account for only about 1% of the general population, but they account for a disproportionate share of violent crime […]

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 3 min Home Traditional chemistry textbooks present a tidy picture: Atoms in molecules occupy fixed positions, connected by rigid rods. A molecule such as formic acid (methanoic acid, HCOOH) is imagined as two-dimensional—flat as a […]

On the threefold birth of the scientific method (3): Galileo Galilei

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 7 min Home We finish this series with the most influential author of our trio (together with Bacon and Descartes) in shaping the scientific method: the Italian Galileo Galilei, who was also, not coincidentally, the […]

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Wormholes may not exist: A reinterpretation of Einstein–Rosen bridges

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 6 min Home Author: Enrique Gaztañaga, Professor at Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (University of Portsmouth) Wormholes are often imagined as tunnels through space or time — shortcuts across the universe. But this image rests […]

The potential of used cooking oil for the energy transition

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 7 min Home Authors: Crisbel Cardenas 1, Eduardo Torre-Pascual 1,2 , Maite de Blas 1,2 , Estíbaliz Sáez de Cámara 1,2, Erlantz Lizundia 1,3 & Ion Agirre-Arisketa 1,2 1 Repsol Foundation Classroom on Energy Transition […]

Regional diversity in longevity trends in Western Europe

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 7 min Home Authors: Florian Bonnet, Démographe et économiste, spécialiste des inégalités territoriales, Ined (Institut national d’études démographiques); Carlo Giovanni Camarda, Docteur, spécialiste des méthodes de prévision (mortalité, longévité, etc.), Ined (Institut national d’études démographiques) […]

Time is not a fundamental part of reality

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 14 min Home Author: Florian Neukart, Assistant professor of Physics, Leiden University Time feels like the most basic feature of reality. Seconds tick, days pass and everything from planetary motion to human memory seems to […]

The silicon advantage: How semiconductor manufacturing aims to solve the quantum computing scaling challenge

Easy text A+ A++ 🌙 5 min Home Authors: Roman Aseguinolaza, Quantum Hardware Predoctoral Researcher at CIC nanoGUNE & M. Fernando Gonzalez-Zalba, Quantum Hardware Group Leader and Ikerbasque Research Professor at CIC nanoGUNE The material at the heart of the […]

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Sir Humphry Davy, in a discourse delivered at the Royal Society in 1825 said:

Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply, — there are always new worlds to conquer.

Every time we make a new scientific discovery we sense where the limit of knowledge is, we feel where ignorance begins. Science is, for certain, what we think we know, but more precisely, it is being aware of the boundaries of the unknown.

In this blog we try to translate cutting edge scientific research into an educated lay-person language; consequently, as we do this, we will be Mapping Ignorance. Our goal is very simple: to spread both the latest developments in science and technology and a scientific worldview facilitating the access to it. To achieve this Mapping Ignorance is written by specialists in each field of expertise coordinated by a dedicated editor; the aim of them all is to make sometimes abstruse but otherwise wonderful scientific and technical information enjoyable by the interested general reader.

Mapping Ignorance is an initiative of the Chair of Scientific Culture of the University of the Basque Country under the Project Campus of International Excellence – Euskampus.