Water is H₂O. Few scientific formulas look more familiar, more compact, or more final. Two atoms of hydrogen, one of oxygen: the phrase seems to say what water really is beneath the shifting appearances of ice, vapour, rain, rivers and […]
Authors: Elisa Rigosi, Researcher in Sensory Biology, Department of Biology, Lund University and David O’Carroll, Professor of Sensory Biology, Department of Biology, Lund University One bee has long been regarded as a benchmark for visual performance: the honeybee drone. These […]
A giant volcanic eruption acted a little like Vesuvius, but across an entire landscape in the Andes, burying the terrain beneath it and preserving information that would otherwise have been lost to erosion and deformation. Recently, the researchers looked at […]
Condensed matter • DIPC Advanced materials • Materials • Quantum physics
Nickel disulfide, NiS₂, is an unusual material. Its interior behaves as an electrical insulator, blocking the flow of current, while certain parts of its surface conduct electricity freely. This contradiction has puzzled physicists for decades, and a recent study offers […]
By 1800, water had already changed once. It was no longer one of nature’s simple terms, but a compound of hydrogen and oxygen (see Is Water H₂O? (1) From Element to Compound). The new chemistry had a powerful account of […]
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with t(6;9)/DEK::NUP214 is recognized as a separate entity in the World Health Organization classification of myeloid neoplasms, accounting for 1% of all AML cases and characterized by a high relapse rate and young age at diagnosis […]
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 […]
One of the most popular versions today of the idea that there can be moral progress—in the sense that our values and moral standards can keep improving—is the claim, much in vogue now, that such progress takes the form of […]
In polymer science, the classic division is between thermoplastics, which soften and flow when heated, and thermosets, which are permanently cross-linked and keep their shape no matter how hot they get—at least until they burn. In the last decade, researchers […]
Author: Shireen Kassam, Visiting Professor, Health and Wellbeing Research Group, University of Winchester and Dagfinn Aune, Research Fellow, School of Public Health, Imperial College London More than 1.4 billion people worldwide live with high blood pressure (hypertension). It’s the single […]
Take a walk in London’s Trafalgar Square this summer and wilting under the heat will be all sorts of body sizes, some tall, some short: a real mix of sizes. Picking just two from the crowd to represent the whole […]
Take a glass of water. Nothing about it seems to ask for a theory. It has no colour worth naming, no dramatic smell, no visible architecture. It runs, freezes, boils, evaporates, dissolves, erodes, circulates and nourishes. It belongs to weather […]
Author: Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University How do you explore a place where the Sun never shines? China’s space programme will soon embark on one of the most innovative lunar exploration missions in recent years. We’ve known […]
Authors: Phil Wiseman, Senior Research Fellow and Ernest Rutherford Fellow in Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton and Mark Sullivan, Professor, University of Southampton A 2025 study by South Korean researchers caught the attention of the astronomy community when it […]