Signatures of microlensing in gravitational waves
There is a variety of predictions from the general theory of relativity. And usually they are treated in the popular imagination somehow independently. This would be the case of gravitational waves and gravitational lenses, but in reality nothing prevent them […]
Terminator: self-healing does no longer belongs to fiction only
About the author: Mikel Irigoyen is a PhD candidate at POLYMAT (UPV/EHU); his research is focused on the theoretical modelling of self-healing polymers.
As beautiful as it is, the natural world has always been a tough place to […]
Caplan’s ‘case against education’ (1)
It’s a pitty that Bryan Caplan’s extremely interesting book The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money , published in 2018, has not deserved more careful attention in the public and permanent […]
MI weekly selection #346
Voyager data measure higher pressure at fringes of solar system
The Voyager probes have provided NASA scientists with data that suggest the pressure at the outer edges of our solar system is much higher than previously believed. Astronomers also discovered […]
How to identify a point defect in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides
A crystal lattice is formed by a repeated arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules. Due to the enormous amount of atoms involved it is extremely unlikely that all these will be arranged in perfect order. Some atoms will not be […]
CRISPR gene therapy against AIDS
After the big scandal of the CRISPR babies at the end of 2018, some might have thought that would be the end of CRISPR in the clinic, but luckily that has not been the case and despite the public outrage […]
Did we settle down for beer?
You have probably heard before about the origin of the word salary. Indeed, it comes from the allowance that Roman soldiers received to purchase salt. The trace left on the language tells about the importance it had. There is no […]
MI weekly selection #345
Gene editing gives fruit flies monarch abilities
Researchers have edited the genes of fruit flies to make them able to digest the toxins in milkweed like monarch butterflies do. It took just three genetic tweaks to give the fruit flies […]
Tensor networks everywhere
Originally developed in the context of condensed-matter physics and based on renormalization group ideas, tensor networks have been revived thanks to quantum information theory and the progress in understanding the role of entanglement in quantum many-body systems. Ikerbasque Research Professor […]
Bad companies
Forming large groups (flocks, banks, swarms, herds, schools, …) is characteristic of many species. The generally accepted idea is that it is an adaptive process, in which the individual improves its chances of survival by being part of a numerous […]