Living stromatolites discovered in remote wetlands of Tasmania Microbial mats of living stromatolites, which first appeared on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago but are very rare now, have been found in a remote wetland area of Tasmania. Researchers were surprised to find the stromatolites thriving in a freshwater environment since most stromatolite communities […]
A dielectric is a nonconductor of electric charge in which an applied electric field causes a displacement of charge but not a flow of charge. Light propagation through a dielectric medium is determined by the spatial distribution of the material. Photons scatter at local variations of the refractive index. Therefore, how ordered the medium is […]
Collagen is the newest trendy nutrient. If we search for “collagen” in the web browser, we will find a wide variety of food supplements, cosmetic products and web pages where collagen beneficial effects are highlighted. Although collagen is a mere protein, its name is currently associated to the wellness circuit and, for this reason, it […]
A placebo is a substance or treatment that does not contain any active ingredient or rest in a physiological procedure out of the placebo effect, but still achieves a real change. The placebo effect is a psychobiological phenomenon, but it generates authentic physical changes, something that can be observed, for example, in the heartbeat, blood […]
Detailed carving found on small gem in ancient Greek tomb A detailed scene of a warrior in battle carved on an ancient gemstone about 3.6 centimeters long was uncovered in Greece by researchers after they cleaned away dirt and limestone. The so-called Pylos Combat Agate was among 1,400 artifacts found in a tomb dating back […]
Electrons do not move around nuclei in defined curved orbits. Our current understanding of how electrons are to be found in atoms and molecules is based on clouds of probability called orbitals as it is not possible to give a definite path for an electron. Thus, an orbital is a region in which an electron […]
Thomas C. Südhof (Göttingen, Germany, December 22, 1955) is a neurobiologist awarded in 2013 with the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his studies on the trafficking of vesicles in the cell. Südhof has just published an article in the journal Cell, one of the best in the world, about neurexins, one of the most interesting […]
The problem of what is the relation between matter and mind, and more particularly, between the physical stuff of our brain, on the one hand, and our consciousness and their conscious, qualitative states (also known as ‘qualia’), certainly is one of the deepest and hardest questions in all philosophy. I have already written in Mapping […]
Malaria-causing parasites drive mosquitoes to bite humans Mosquitoes infected with parasites that induce malaria tend to seek out humans more when the parasite is in the infectious stage, suggesting the parasite is controlling mosquitoes’ behavior. Researchers say that when Plasmodium falciparum is in the transmissible stage, it will drive mosquitoes to feed on human blood […]
When light encounters molecules, the predominant mode of scattering is elastic scattering (Rayleigh). This scattering is responsible for the blue colour of the sky, for example. It is also possible for the incident photons to interact with the molecules in such a way that energy is either gained or lost so that the scattered photons […]