Ancient shipwreck offers clues about African elephants About 100 tusks found among the artifacts of a trading ship that sank in 1533 are giving researchers new insights into the African elephants that lived during that time, according to findings scheduled to be published in Current Biology. Conditions at the shipwreck site preserved DNA in the […]
DIPC Electronic Properties • Quantum physics • Theoretical physics
Density functional theory (DFT) is a theoretical treatment of molecules in which the electron density is considered rather than the wave functions of individual electrons. In other words, it is a way of describing many-electron, in general, many-fermion, systems in which the energy is a funtional of the density of electrons (fermions). DFT is without […]
If you are a fan of the MARVEL universe, you will have noticed that many of its characters, such as Spiderman, Black Panther, Ant-Man or Wolverine, have superpowers based on the abilities of certain animals. Using the animal kingdom as a reference, and using the abilities of certain animals, is not something exclusive to comics […]
Loss of gene function is a common occurrence in evolution that is usually associated with loss of fitness. However, it seems that as many say: “where there’s a problem, there is an opportunity“, for as researchers from Leuven University led by Rob Jelier have recently reported , gene loss was found to drive adaptation. To […]
Pterosaur ancestry may have an answer Pterosaurs have been linked to a group of ancient small reptiles called lagerpetids, according to an examination of a variety of fossils from several regions. Lagerpetids, which date back between 237 million and 210 million years ago, share similar traits with pterosaurs, including inner ear shape, longer hand bones […]
In spintronics, new memory and logic devices are being developed based on the use of spins of nuclei, atoms, or molecules, instead of electronic charges. The main advantages are an improved energy efficiency and speed of operation to store and process information. The ability of organic molecules to maintain magnetic multistability in nanoscale junctions will […]
“Did the Atlantic close and then reopen?” That was the question posed in a 1966 paper by the Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson. The answer? Yes, over millions of years. And it was the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea, starting some 180 million years ago, that began creating the Atlantic Ocean basin as we know […]
If Plato’s reflections on the nature of epistéme was the starting point of what we can take as an authentic ‘philosophy of science’, and even if his views were probably the most influential during the rest of the Ancient times (as we shall confirm in subsequent entries), the truth is that science as we know […]
Unique electron bursts observed by space probes Probes from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft have detected a peculiar type of electron burst in a quiet region of space. The unusual thing about the bursts is that they appear to precede shock waves significantly in what study co-author Don Gurnett has called “a brand-new mechanism.” Gizmodo Quantum supremacy […]
Topological insulators are electronic materials that have a bulk band gap like an ordinary insulator but have conducting states on their edge or surface. The conducting surface is not what makes topological insulators unique, but the fact that it is protected due to the combination of spin-orbit interactions and time-reversal symmetry. Inducing magnetism in topological […]