When the general media report news about genetics, there is a deplorable tendency towards gene determinism. Headlines in the vein of “Gene for X discovered”—where X is anything from a physical trait to a complex behavior—are regrettably common, and almost always incorrect. That’s why I face this article with some trepidation. Because, you see, there […]
You have probably heard of the plastic island , an enormous area full of plastic garbage, gathered by oceanic currents, in the North Pacific Ocean. In the last few decades the amount of plastic debris in this area has increased two orders of magnitude, representing one of the best examples of the environmental impact caused […]
Carlos Fuentes, one of the great contemporary Latin American writers, once said that La Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (‘The truthful history of the conquest of New Spain’, first published in 1632) was the true foundation of the Latin American novel. This chronicle narrates the conquest of modern-day Mexico by the […]
Orcas or killer whales (Orcinus orca) are widely distributed and feed on a large array of prey —fish, seals and sometimes whales—. These powerful predators are highly adaptable, cooperative and live in stable matriarchal social groups of related animals. Each prey species they feed on requires special hunting skills and there have been observational reports […]
Humanities & Social Sciences • Science • Technology • Weekly Selection
“Native” water once existed on the Moon A new analysis of lunar soil samples from NASA’s Apollo missions has found evidence that the moon in its early days may have contained “native” water. The findings, which were published in the journal Nature Geoscience, go against prevailing theories that the moon formed from the debris of […]
Markets are the most studied economic mechanism for two main reasons. First, they have existed in most societies. Second, at least since Adam Smith we have learned some of the interesting properties they possess. In particular, the modern General Equilibrium Theory, in its standard version, asserts that rational agents interacting in a competitive market with […]
Robert Hooke discovered the cell in 1665. Plenty of years passed until the human being, in less than three decades, went from elucidate DNA structure (1953) to control artificially the genetic expression of a living cell. Thorough knowledge of the life´s language (genetic code) and information flows (DNA–>RNA–>Protein) was paramount to achieve such a goal […]
Metaethics is the branch of philosophy that tries to elucidate, not what is morally good or bad, or how can we know it (this would be the function of ethics), but what is the nature of ethics, of moral language, of moral judgments, and of moral attitudes. The scientific study of morals could be considered […]
“ Photonic crystals” is the name that was given to periodic arrangements of materials with different refractive indexes. This name derives from the analogy between the behavior of photons in these materials and the one of electrons in the periodic structure formed by atoms in an actual crystal. The technological side of the analogy suggests […]
Humans can build and use the most sophisticated tools. One of the reasons is the configuration of our hands, which enable us to hold items in a very convenient way. But further than that, we can actually grab items because of the friction coefficient that exists between the skin of our hands and the surface […]