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Going postal:  When radiation dosimeters got into a box

Going postal: When radiation dosimeters got into a box

HistoryMedicinePhysicsSociology

By Invited Researcher

What is a radiation dosimeter? Why do we need one? To give you an interesting and short response I will remind you what the Japanese government officials offered to Fukushima evacuees after the 2011 nuclear disaster. Having failed to reach their original radiation decontamination target, the government proposed that evacuees could return to their homes […]

MI weekly selection #78

MI weekly selection #78

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Handwriting is key for educational development Handwriting is starting to fade from the curriculum of many schools, but experts say the practice is important for educational development. The New York Times Superbugs use genetic material as cloak to avoid detection A deadly class of antibiotic-resistant bacteria called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, carries genetic material that serves as […]

Ringed worlds

Ringed worlds

Planetary Science

By Santiago Pérez-Hoyos

Galileo Galilei was the first person to see rings around a planet. He was unable to understand the image in the eyepiece of his simple, though revolutionary, telescope. Was it a triple planet? Were it handles? Much to his surprise, the unfathomable shape of Saturn changed as years went by. It took some decades to […]

MI weekly selection #77

MI weekly selection #77

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Orb-web spiders craft a unique disguise An orb-web spider hides itself from predators by disguising itself as bird droppings, according to researchers. The spiders have a silver colored body that, when combined with their white disc-shaped webs, gives the illusion of bird excrement that may deter predatory wasps. LiveScience Ants are organized searchers who gain […]

Epigenetic alterations in Alzheimer’s disease, nature vs. nurture on the path to dementia

Epigenetic alterations in Alzheimer’s disease, nature vs. nurture on the path to dementia

GeneticsNeuroscience

By Raúl Delgado-Morales

Nowadays there are still people that believe in destiny. However the scientific community more and more is bringing light to that subject showing that although the genetic material could program ourselves to suffer some pathologies, the day-to-day experiences are the ones that lead us towards a healthy or pathological aging. And how is that? Our […]

Forming bubbles in liquid light

Forming bubbles in liquid light

Science

By Invited Researcher

For many centuries, the passage of light through matter was regarded as that of a wave in a fixed medium characterized by a refractive index (n), which may depend on the frequency. This description is consistent with plenty of phenomena, including diffraction, interference, refraction, dispersion or polarization, associated to distinguished names of the history of […]