An exciton can be described as an electron-hole pair in a crystal that is bound in a manner analogous to the electron and proton in a hydrogen atom. The exciton behaves like an atomic excitation that passes from one atom to another. In most cases, excitons are induced by an electromagnetic wave, a photon. Interestingly […]
Men and women are different. It has been long known that pregnancy and motherhood alter women’s brains. What was so far not clear was what happens to the brains of fathers. Recent research has shown that having children rewires fathers’ brains as well. Mother’s brains change to adapt to the demands of their babies, that […]
Scientists have successfully demonstrated that autonomous methods can discover new materials. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technique led to the discovery of three new nanostructures, including a first-of-its-kind nanoscale “ladder.” The newly discovered structures were formed by a process called self-assembly, in which a material’s molecules organize themselves into unique patterns. Scientists at Brookhaven’s Center for […]
Over the last decade, research has focused on studying predictive personality traits that may underlie bullying. Two such traits are self-esteem and narcissism. Self-esteem is associated with overall acceptance of oneself, feelings of worthiness and self-confidence. Low self-esteem has long been theorized to be a risk factor for aggression and antisocial behavior . Likewise, the […]
Scientists find aging mechanism — and how to reverse it Biologists have developed a new model for understanding aging based on the degradation in how DNA is organized and regulated, identifying the epigenome as the predominant factor in the aging process. The findings may help scientists develop treatments to reverse aging and delay the onset […]
Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) is a family of crystalline chemical compounds that display high-temperature superconductivity; it includes the first material ever discovered to become superconducting above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen (77 K) at about 93 K. This family is known as cuprates as it can be viewed as containing anionic copper complexes […]
Author: Ramón Muñoz-Chápuli has been Professor of Animal Biology in the University of Málaga until his retirement. He has investigated for forty years in the fields of developmental biology and animal evolution. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite of warm-blooded animals, including humans. After the acute phase of the infection, the parasite remains latent in […]
Plastics are ubiquitous in our society, found in packaging and bottles as well as making up more than 18% of solid waste in landfills. Many of these plastics also make their way into the oceans, where they take up to hundreds of years to break down into pieces that can harm wildlife and the aquatic […]
In our trip through the philosophical discussion about the nature of observation in science, I propose to take a different route from the most classical ones, and probably a surprising one for most of you. Akerlof’s classic paper ‘The Market for Lemons’, one of the founding works of the Economics of Information, presented an idealised […]
Over two-thirds of world’s glaciers will melt by 2100 More than two-thirds of the world’s glaciers will disappear by 2100 if the climate continues to warm at current trends. The global temperature is on track to rise 2.7 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, but scientists note that if future […]