During the second half of the 80s, when no one knew those years would become the Soviet Union’s last, Mikhail Gorbachev attempted some economic reforms without much success. Less than one decade earlier, in 1978, Deng Xiaoping started a series of reforms that secured not only economic growth, but also the rule of Chinese communist […]
Black holes are vacuum solutions of the Einstein equation. Hence, the energy-momentum tensor for a black hole is null at every point of space. The only place where its mass can be located is where there is no space, i.e., at the singularity. Hence, for a Schwarzschild black hole, the mass is located at the […]
Sun bears communicate via facial mimicry Sun bears communicate by mimicking each other’s facial expressions, a practice long thought to occur only in species with complex social systems. “Other primates and dogs are known to mimic each other, but only great apes and humans were previously known to show such complexity in their facial mimicry,” […]
Condensed matter • Materials • Nanotechnology • Quantum physics • Theoretical physics
Controlling electron waves by harnessing phase-coherence and interference effects is a cornerstone for future nanoelectronics or quantum computing. To this end, design of platforms with well-defined, narrow, and low-loss propagation channels is essential. Nanoporous graphene (NPG) holds great potential for distributing and controlling currents on the nanoscale. But the effects derived from the wave nature […]
The division of past and future In Part 1 of this series, we presented the empirical fact that under extreme circumstances, a certain observer’s past can be in another observer’s future. To explain this, we introduced the network of cause and consequence relations as the fixed background structure of reality. This network constitutes Spacetime. Causality […]
The idea that human beings are composed by two kind of ‘substances’, a material body and a spiritual mind, or soul, is probably as old as modern human beings, and has certainly insufflated most of the world religions, as well as a big number of philosophical theories about human nature. Even non-religious people admit in […]
Hormonal birth control failure might be due to genetic mutation The reason hormonal birth control methods aren’t 100% effective, even in compliant patients, may be due to a genetic mutation in some women. Researchers say about 5% of women are genetically predisposed to produce an enzyme that lessens the effectiveness of hormonal birth control. Wired […]
Chemistry • Condensed matter • Materials • Nanotechnology • Quantum physics
Every year the amount of data produced is of the order of magnitude of the Avogadro’s constant, thus 6.028×1023. This trend is supposed to increase even more in the next future. This implies that more and more special metals will be needed. The point is: what might happen if the resources used for manufacturing common […]
Wildfires are a major problem with a strong impact on human life, property and the environment, Global warming and a legacy of poor management are the forces behind the increase in their occurrence and in their magnitude measured in extension. In 2017, an unusual number of extensive and severe wildfires occurred in many parts of […]
The needs imposed by a globalized society that maintains activity 24 hours a day and 7 days a week are being addressed by increasing working hours and extending work activity into the weekend. Karoshi, which can be translated literally as “overwork death” in Japanese, is occupational sudden mortality. In Asian countries, the risk of karoshi […]