Article archives

We Still Don’t Know How We Smell: The Shape and Vibrational Theories of Olfaction

We Still Don’t Know How We Smell: The Shape and Vibrational Theories of Olfaction

NeurobiologyPhysics

By Daniel Manzano

Olfaction is one of the most important senses. It protects us from eating spoiled food, it helps animals to detect their relatives, it makes the perfume business quite successful and, in general, it connects us to the volatile chemicals surrounding us. These chemicals, usually called “odorants”, can be detected even if they are in a […]

Rapidly Exploring Manifolds: when going from A to B ain’t easy

Rapidly Exploring Manifolds: when going from A to B ain’t easy

Robotics

By José Luis Blanco

We will address a recent article by Jaillet and Porta (Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, IRI), which reveals new practical applications of highly-abstract mathematical entities. When it comes to robots, we can’t forget that their fundamental goal is always somehow related to moving stuff. Arm robots as those found in the automotive industries are […]

Quantum kisses between optical nanoantennas

Quantum kisses between optical nanoantennas

Physics

By Invited Researcher

The wave nature of light expresses itself in the propagation all over space, showing an intrinsic limitation to be localized beyond the so-called diffraction limit which is of the order of half the wavelength of the photons propagating. However when interacting with matter, light often gets reflected, diffracted, scattered or absorbed depending on the interactions […]

MI weekly selection #9

MI weekly selection #9

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Electronics on paper At the moment the costs are still too high for them to be used in things like business cards or package labels, but remarkable advances in materials science and simpler fabrication methods are setting the stage for a whole new breed of cheap, bendable, disposable, and perhaps even recyclable electronics. And some […]

Looking through opaque materials

Looking through opaque materials

Physics

By Isabel de la Fuente

A translucent material allows light to pass through, but if we try to look an object behind such a material, the image will appear blurred or distorted. Think, for example, of the semitransparent glasses commonly used as showers screens. The reason why the image deforms when passing through the glass is the scattering of light […]