Article archives

MI weekly selection #316

MI weekly selection #316

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

Ginger molecules may boost growth of beneficial gut bacteria Molecules found in ginger may help beneficial gut bacteria grow. An increase in such bacteria was observed in mice fed ginger-derived nanoparticles. The Scientist Curiosity’s accelerometers help measure Mount Sharp’s density Accelerometers aboard the Mars rover Curiosity that are used to collect data about the machine […]

Methane and the determination of the Majorana nature of neutrinos

Methane and the determination of the Majorana nature of neutrinos

DIPC Particle PhysicsParticle physicsPhysics

By DIPC

Experiments performed in 1909 by Geiger and Marsden, also called Rutherford gold foil experiment because Rutherford was their supervisor, led to the discovery of nuclear structure in the atom: the nucleus of the atom is its central core and contains most of its mass and the nucleus is positively charged. Further research during the next […]

On the Genealogy of Innovation, or how to look for power with a hammer

On the Genealogy of Innovation, or how to look for power with a hammer

Philosophy of science

By Invited Researcher

The term “innovation” has been ubiquitous for decades in many areas of European society. Since Lisbon 2000—and even earlier—the European Union has promoted policies to drive innovation with the intention of restoring to Europe the economic leadership it has undoubtedly lost. Two decades later, we are close to Horizon 2020—at least chronologically speaking. Within the […]

MI weekly selection #315

MI weekly selection #315

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

Brain responds to rocking during sleep with improved memory A rocking motion may help people sleep better and improve their memory by influencing their brains’ sleep oscillations. “Our volunteers — even if they were all good sleepers — fell asleep more rapidly when rocked and had longer periods of deeper sleep associated with fewer arousals […]

Optimizing arrythmia ablation

Optimizing arrythmia ablation

MathematicsMedicine

By BCAM

The heart is a muscular organ with four chambers designed to work efficiently, reliably, and continuously over a lifetime. The muscular walls of each chamber contract in a regulated sequence, pumping blood as required by the body while expending as little energy as possible during each heartbeat. Contraction of the muscle fibres in the heart […]

Voting sincerely for public facilities location

Voting sincerely for public facilities location

Economics

By José Luis Ferreira

T here are two major impossibility theorems in social choice: Arrow’s theorem (1951) : the only system to aggregate individual preferences into social preferences (e.g., a voting mechanism) that satisfies the properties of transitivity, monotonicity and independence of irrelevant alternatives for all possible individual preferences is the dictatorial system. Gibbard–Satterthwaite’ theorem (1973) : any voting […]

MI weekly selection #314

MI weekly selection #314

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

3rd fungus found in lichen Researchers have discovered a third fungus in lichen. In addition to an ascomycete and basidiomycete yeast, scientists have detected another basidiomycete, but they aren’t yet sure if this fungus has a symbiotic relationship with the lichen. The Scientist Microbes found hidden in deep-sea dolomite crystals near Japan Microbes have been […]

The dark collapse of merging galaxies as the origin of supermassive black holes

The dark collapse of merging galaxies as the origin of supermassive black holes

AstrophysicsCosmologyDIPC Computational Cosmology

By DIPC

I remember very well my physics professor during my first year at university. She stressed the importance of having clear intuitions of what physical terms mean before any mathematics was invoked. ‘Imagine someone drops an 100-gram apple 1 metre above your head’, she would say; ‘the pain you feel is the equivalent of a joule […]