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Giant lava plain on moon likely due to tectonic stretching, not impact The massive plain of solidified lava on the moon, known as Oceanus Procellarum, wasn’t caused by an asteroid impact as previously thought, according to a study published in Nature. Instead, researchers say, the volcanic basalt was formed by tectonic stretching, according to data […]

Think about just thinking. Not doing anything else but thinking. It´s not rocket science, right? In fact, the ability to engage in conscious thoughts is a distinctive feature of human kind. We’ve been doing it for quite some time then. But still, to be with oneself is a hell of a task. Let your mind […]

Materials science is becoming more and more an interdisciplinary field in which almost every traditional subject has its say. Disciplines such as biology, medicine, computational design, architecture or even music, painting or sculpture converge on this open-minded host. As a result, new inspiring research is coming from so many different fronts, brought together by their […]

Everyone has heard the sound of the crack of a whip, at least in movies or TV serials like “El Zorro: The man with the whip” (1954). A shock wave is created by the supersonic motion of the tip of the whip in the air . Whipping is a typical fluid instability of an accelerating […]

Amazon warriors’ names found on ancient Greek pottery Strange inscriptions on ancient Greek pottery appear to name Amazon warrior women, according to a study in Hesperia. Linguists deciphered the inscriptions on 12 vases dating from between 550 B.C. to 450 B.C. into phonetic sounds and sent them, without explanation, to McMaster University’s John Colarusso, an […]

The most notorious argument presented in favour of the theory that asserts that living beings are necessarily the result of a conscious and deliberate act of intelligent creation, is William Dembski’s ‘explanatory filter’ (EF). According to this argument, when explaining anything, we have three alternatives: first, we shall try to explain it as the result […]

Is it possible to have an asymmetric magnetic field when all boundary conditions are known to be symmetric? The question seems awkward but the counter-intuitive reality is always there to make Science far more interesting, as revealed recently by Hao Cao and collaborators . Today’s story is a good combination of intriguing observations and amazing […]

Science news with bad titles usually attract a lot of attention. A recent example is “The sound of an atom has been captured” ]. Laypeople must know that atoms do not emit sound. Quantum acoustics study the propagation and the interaction of phonons, the analogues in sound to photons in light. An atom cannot emit […]

Antarctic ice growing at record-setting pace Antarctic sea ice is on track to reach a record high this month while Arctic ice has decreased to its sixth-lowest level, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Antarctic ice usually reaches its maximum level each September, about the same time as the Arctic reaches its […]

In the last decades, the most popular philosophical defence of scientific realism has been what is known as the ‘no miracle argument’ (NMA; Putnam 1981). Though there is a range of different interpretations of NMA, it typically asserts that scientific realism is ‘the best explanation’ (or perhaps, the only reasonable one) of the ‘success of […]