Astronomers identify 2 planets as possible water worlds Using data from the Kepler, Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers have identified two exoplanets orbiting a red-dwarf star 218 light-years away suspected of being made mostly of water. “It is the first time we observe planets that can be confidently identified as water worlds, a type […]
When you collect vast amounts of data, most of them will likely be irrelevant or uninteresting. But, hidden in all that noise, you may find a jewel. The data where one scientific jewel, a supernova, has just been found is the collection of observations by the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) project. HFF drew on the […]
The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile’s Atacama Desert has inspired engineers to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars. Researchers used high-resolution electron microscopy and advanced spectroscopic imaging techniques to gain a precise understanding of how microorganisms modify both naturally occurring […]
Electrical stimulation of the spinal cord can help recover mobility in some paralysed patients. However, the mechanism underlying this partial recovery of function remains unknown. A recent human study has confirmed the involvement of a group of cells previously identified in mice, paving the way to targeted treatments. In a recently published study in Nature […]
Radioactive meteorites could have brought life to Earth The gamma rays produced by carbonaceous chondrites, radioactive meteorites that contain water and organic compounds, could have been sufficient to spark the chemical reactions that created amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth, researchers have concluded. The study is based on observations from bombarding chemicals […]
Anthropology • Archaeology • Ethics • Genetics • History
About two-thirds of Jews today – or about 10 million people – are Ashkenazi, referring to a recent origin from Eastern and Central Europe. They reside mostly in the United States and Israel. Ashkenazi Jews carry a particularly high burden of disease-causing genetic mutations, such as those in the BRCA1 gene associated with an increased […]
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the most important modes of climate variability worldwide, with large impacts on the weather conditions in many regions, and thus on agriculture and economy. It is related to changes in the sea surface temperatures in the Tropical Pacific Ocean. Periods with higher temperatures cause the so-called […]
In recent years, supporters of the theory of degrowth have found an ally in an imaginary “new economic theory” that has become very popular: the so-called Doughnut Economics , for the title of a book by the British economist Kate Raworth, who proposed the model in a 2012 article. Raworth is not really a degrowther […]
Flash thought to result from black hole swallowing a star Two separate teams of scientists, who have published papers in Nature and Nature Astronomy, have concluded that a flash of light that appeared in February was the astrophysical jet that erupted from a massive black hole as it swallowed a star. “From the data we […]
Nanothreads are one-dimensional covalently bonded materials, with all “backbone” bonds saturated in the organic sense, the first of which was made from polymerization of benzene in the solid state. Nanothreads are thicker than conventional hydrocarbon polymers such as polyethylene and thinner than traditional nanowires: as ladder polymers, they are examples of the thinnest possible rigid […]