Ravens can pre-plan, barter for rewards Ravens have the cognitive ability to plan ahead and barter for rewards. Researchers tested ravens in a series of experiments and found they performed better at those tasks than great apes or human children. National Geographic An ordinary star Our sun is just an ordinary star when compared with […]
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. Researchers are chasing efficient […]
Reference contains the following statement: “Ashtekar’s formulation of general relativity taught us to think of gravitational theories as theories of connections, on a bare manifold with no metric structure. […] The idea that general relativity has its deepest formulation as a connection theory suggested immediately a new approach to the unification of general relativity with […]
NASA’s quieter supersonic jet zooms past milestone A supersonic jet under development at NASA that would create a much quieter sound than the loud sonic booms produced by more conventional supersonic aircraft has passed a preliminary design review. The Quiet Supersonic Transport is meant to make a quiet thump when passing the speed of sound […]
For centuries, metals were employed in optical applications only as mirrors and gratings. New vistas opened up in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering and the use of surface plasmon (collective electronic oscillations at the surface of metals) resonances for sensing. However, it was not until the 1990s […]
When we talk about nucleic acids we generally think of DNA and RNA that code for proteins, and when we talk about brain cells we tend to think of neurons and their nerve impulse transmission. However, it is not news that the functions of both non-coding genetic material and non-transmitting cells in the brain are […]
Data assimilation to help predict volcano eruptions A new method to forecast volcano activity using data assimilation is being developed by researchers in France. The method uses satellite data to gauge each volcano’s magma overpressure. Scientific American Bees exposed to pesticides even with untreated plants Bees are exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides even with untreated plants […]
Over geologic time scales, seawater transforms the basalt of the ocean floor by chemical attack. At the end of this alteration process, the basalt turns partly into clays and partly into dissolved salts in sea water. Lithium, a chemical element initially contained in basalt, will then be distributed between clay and seawater. This separation has […]
DAVID HUME: You’re not going to believe me, Otto, but I have a new girlfriend. OTTO NEURATH: Com’on, Dave, at your age, and within this crappy retirement home in which we’re confined. HUME: Incredible or not, it’s a fact. She is a German existentialist philosopher, who was Heidegger’s affair a few months ago. NEURATH: Well […]
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by a spirochete, a bacterium, Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum . The main route of infection is by sexual contact but is also transmitted from the mother to the newborn in what is known as congenital syphilis. If syphilis is left untreated for years the treponema may invade the […]