A tax on carbon emissions is an efficient way to make firms and consumers internalize the environmental costs due to climate change. However, there are many other aspects to consider in a transition from a fossil-fueled economy to a cleaner one. In a past article we presented the case for subsidies on research to develop […]
Yellow band is Milky Way’s reflection on moon in new depiction Milky Way radio waves can be seen as a bright splash of yellow reflected on the moon’s surface in a new image. Astronomers used data from the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia to create the image and plan to use the technique to learn […]
Chemistry • Condensed matter • Materials • Nanotechnology • Quantum physics
A quantum dot is a nanometric crystalline structure of semiconductor materials. In a quatum dot electrons are confined in a region of space, thus creating a well defined structure of energy levels that depends very much on the size and shape of the quantum dot. This structure resembles that of atoms, that is why sometimes […]
As I mentioned in passing in my last entry , many, if not most, of the oldest stories about Christian martyrs and saints are nothing but legendary fabrications, something that scholars knew perfectly well since at least the time of the Enlightenment, when scientific criteria of historiographic research started to be employed by ecclesiastical historians […]
In the transition from a petrol-based society to a one based on bio-renewable resources, the replacement of aromatic chemicals is one of the most challenging issues. Nowadays, around 40% of the bulk chemicals belong to the aromatic category, and a myriad of products are derived from benzene, toluene and xylene. Aromatic molecules are present in […]
Patient with Parkinson’s gets experimental stem cell-based treatment Researchers have placed 2.4 million dopamine precursor cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells into the brain of a patient with Parkinson’s disease, the first of seven people to undergo the experimental treatment. “The patient is doing well, and there have been no major adverse reactions so […]
Condensed matter • Materials • Nanotechnology • Quantum physics
Imagine a military regiment in formation. That we will call symmetry. Now imagine the same regiment when it is dismissed by the commanding officer: at once the soldiers disperse and tend to form domains (groups) or pairs. Hence, we can say that the symmetry is spontaneously broken. Both superconductors and ferromagnets are examples of electron […]
Several researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) are warning about an AI winter, which means that scientists might lose the interest on the discipline, institutions reduce drastically the funding towards its research and lose presence in the public debate. It wouldn’t be the first AI winter though. The last two decades have been […]
When nanoparticles (NPs) get in contact with biological fluids such as blood, proteins present in it will adsorb on the surface of those NPs forming what is known as the protein corona . It is a dynamic process in equilibrium with the surrounding proteins and it may lead to drastic changes in the NPs. The […]
Astronomers identify star with clues to early days of universe A nearby star may have been around since shortly after the Big Bang and could help astronomers learn more about what the universe was like back then. The star, 2MASS J18082002-5104378 B, is thought to be approximately 13.5 billion years old. Space.com Bodies burn more […]