During the last decades, the electronics industry has been very successful in pushing forward the advancement of electronic building blocks, but the limit of silicon-based electronic devices especially in terms of miniaturization are almost reached. There are many ideas how to overcome this problem, for example, by adding functionality based on approaches originating from molecular […]
Competitive markets are a well understood economic mechanism. The Economic Theory explains remarkably well, at least for a social science, its properties and success along economic history. We have lab experimentation (see here), and plenty of historical evidence that a market oriented society improves upon a non-market oriented one. It has happened in democracies like […]
Life in early colonial Mexico charted on unique aztec map A rare map dating back to 1593 offers clues about Spanish explorers and the indigenous peoples of Mexico. The map, which is available to view on the Library of Congress website, is called the Codex Quetzalecatzin and details the lineage of a family known as […]
The scattering of conduction electrons in metals owing to impurities with magnetic moments is known as the Kondo effect, after Jun Kondo, who analysed the phenomenon in 1964. This scattering increases the electrical resistance and has the consequence that, in contrast to ordinary metals, the resistance reaches a minimum as the temperature is lowered and […]
In the past entry I presented a criticism to a few common arguments (or rather, topics) that we often find ‘in defence’ of the humanities. Those arguments were problematic not only because their fallacious nature, but because they only serve to add confidence to the ones already persuaded, but they give to the rest of […]
Massive geomagnetic storm likely cause of red skies over East Asia in 1770 A powerful geomagnetic storm is the likely cause of red auroras seen in the skies for nine days over much of East Asia in 1770. Researchers scoured more than 100 historical documents and drawings to find accounts of the major event, which […]
Biochemistry • Chemistry • Condensed matter • DIPC Biochemistry
We all know that the main role of DNA is the storage of genomic information leading to the biosynthesis of proteins via diverse forms of RNA. In turn, proteins play multiple roles in living systems, catalysis being among the most important ones. These are the standard functions that we may find in any general chemistry […]
Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas (Plato is my friend, but Truth is still a better friend of mine), they say Aristotle whispered when he explained the arguments with which he demolished the theories of his teacher, whose school, the Academy, had been Aristotle’s home for twenty years. I remember this well known phrase almost […]
Gravity changes could help determine quake magnitudes faster Signals from Earth’s gravitational field could help seismologists determine the magnitude of large quakes more quickly. The quicker a temblor’s actual size can be determined, the sooner emergency personnel can know how many resources may be needed to respond. Nature Large cache of fossilized pterosaur eggs found […]
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 […]