Article archives

Evidence-based trials: better compared than randomized

Evidence-based trials: better compared than randomized

Philosophy of science

By Jon Gurutz Izquierdo

For quite a while now, it has been assumed that Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) have improved the way we acquire knowledge, especially in the scientific area where this technique is the gold standard, clinical practice. From Medicine to Social sciences, evidence-based policies have turned into the widespread common ground from where to seek trustworthy information […]

Effects of defects and water on perovskite solar cells

Effects of defects and water on perovskite solar cells

ChemistryCondensed matterEnergyMaterialsPhysics

By DIPC

The German mineralogist Gustav Rose (1798 – 1873) made important contributions in the fields of petrology and crystallography. He was the first to use a reflective goniometer in Germany and developed a particular interest in the relationship between the crystalline form and the physical properties of minerals. As a consequence, he contributed significantly to the […]

Skepticism, a short uncertain history (6): The mother of all lost causes

Skepticism, a short uncertain history (6): The mother of all lost causes

EpistemologyPhilosophy of science

By Jesús Zamora Bonilla

Descartes’ opening of the Pandora’s box of skepticism, and the liberation of the Evil Demon it triggered, started a terrible shock in the tectonic plates of Western thought, a shock whose waves still reach us with more or less strength, and that mainly contributed to configure our contemporary intellectual landscape. I shall devote the next […]

Sounds of seduction

Sounds of seduction

BiologyEthology

By José Ramón Alonso

Ants communicate through different mechanisms in order to regulate their social organization. The best known is through scented chemicals known as pheromones. These chemical messengers are received at the tips of the antennae and differences in concentration between the left one and the right one are used as an orientation vector. Ants use about ten […]

MI weekly selection #149

MI weekly selection #149

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Volcanoes, asteroid may have killed dinosaurs Researchers studying ancient lava flows in India say volcanic eruptions, combined with an asteroid strike, caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. Los Angeles Times New Zealand fish jumps out of water to hunt prey Researchers in New Zealand have discovered that the banded kokopu […]

How to engineer bacteria to treat cancer

How to engineer bacteria to treat cancer

BiomedicineBiotechnologyMedicineMicrobiology

By Jaime de Juan Sanz

It all began in 1891, when Dr. William B. Coley, a bone sarcoma surgeon at the Memorial Hospital in New York, injected streptococcal organisms into a patient with inoperable cancer. He thought that the infection he induced would have the side effect of shrinking the malignant tumor… and quite surprisingly he was right! The patient’s […]

Electronic friction is fundamental to understand surface chemistry dynamics

Electronic friction is fundamental to understand surface chemistry dynamics

ChemistryCondensed matterMaterialsPhysics

By DIPC

Anyone who has studied, even superficially, some thermodynamics has encountered the word adiabatic very early. This is because adiabatic processes are extremely useful to understand the basics of the field. An adiabatic process is any process that occurs without heat (or matter) entering or leaving a system. In general, an adiabatic change involves a fall […]

Robot navigation on Mars

Robot navigation on Mars

Robotics

By Julián Estévez

Three main incorporations of physical robots are forecasted in our lives: transport, assistance and factory robots. Design and requisites of these different kinds are quite different, but one particularly is attracting researchers’ efforts: navigation. While transport robotics is located outdoors, the rest two are indoors. Outdoors machines can make use of a GPS (among other […]