pantanal Author: Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti, Lecturer in Environmental Anthropology, University College London “How can we use nature in a sustainable way?” That is a question I, together with colleagues from different parts of the world, have sought to answer for a decade. We are dedicated to studying issues related to the sustainable use of natural […]
Billions of tiny particles packed into rechargeable lithium-ion battery electrodes are responsible for storing charge and making it available when it’s needed to do work. X-ray movies of this process show the particles absorbing and releasing lithium ions as the battery charges and discharges. Now, in an important step forward, researchers have used a type […]
Music is not only a pleasure for our brains, it seems that learning it at an old age can help prevent grey matter loss. This non-medicinal intervention would be a very interesting way of delaying the onset of dementia and loss of cognitive abilities associated with ageing. Recently, a team of researchers recruited a group […]
NASA’s MOXIE experiment generates oxygen on Mars NASA’s first mission to generate oxygen on Mars — the “Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment,” or MOXIE — has successfully concluded, the agency announced. The toaster-sized device on the Perseverance rover has produced 122 grams of oxygen that is at least 98% pure, which could be scaled […]
Magnons or spin waves are elementary quasiparticles, which represent a collective motion of magnetic moments in ordered systems. Spin waves can propagate in materials and therewith transport a spin current. This spin flow requires no electrical charge transport and therefore no electrical losses creating Joule heating. Spin waves enclose a wide frequency range, from gigahertz […]
endangered Author: Dave Sayers, Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics, University of Jyväskylä / Jyväskylän yliopisto Headlines abound with the plight of endangered minority languages around the world. Read a few of these and you’ll see some common themes: the rising number of languages dying worldwide, the distressing isolation of individual last speakers, and the wider cultural […]
As the Earth’s human population grows, greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s food system are on track to expand. A new study demonstrates that state-of-the-art agricultural technology and management can not only reduce that growth but eliminate it altogether by generating net negative emissions – reducing more greenhouse gas than food systems add. Employing additional […]
Computer science • Language • Linguistics • Medicine • Robotics
At a time when the mass media are full of predictions about the apocalyptic effect that AI will have on humanity, it is comforting to read two essays that show that the reality, for the moment, points in the opposite direction. The first of these reveals the excellent results that the application of natural language […]
A new type of bird-like dinosaur Scientists have studied a newly discovered fossil of a bird-like dinosaur likely between 148 to 150 million years old that may be the youngest member of the Jurassic avialans. The creature, called Fujianvenator prodigiosus, was about the size of a pheasant, had long legs that were likely used for […]
We all know what glass is, don’t we? We just point to the nearest window and it is that transparent sheet. Humans have been producing glass for at least 6,000 years, way before they knew how to smelt iron. Actually, the chemistry is well known: to produce window glass we just heat a mixture of […]