Heartbeats as passwords By recording and isolating the unique “musical” properties of a heartbeat — both rhythm and pitch — researchers have created a biometric identification system which can distinguish between people with a 99.6% accuracy rate. “We might use this solution in a building’s access control system where pre-registered users provide a template (a […]
Imagine a conductor or a semiconductor through which a current is flowing. Then we apply a strong transverse magnetic field. As a result, we can measure a potential difference at right angles to both the current and the field caused by the deflection of charge carriers by the field. This effect was described by Edwin […]
Pluto, the Solar System’s largest dwarf planet, just became even more interesting with a report that icy lava flows have recently covered substantial tracts of its surface. In this context, “recently” means probably no more than a billion years ago. That’s old, of course – and there is no suggestion that volcanoes are still active […]
Author: José R. Pineda got his Ph.D. from University of Barcelona in 2006. Since 2007 he has worked for Institut Curie and The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. Currently he is a researcher of the UPV/EHU. He investigates the role of stem cells in physiologic and pathologic conditions. Neurogenesis is a process in […]
Why don’t boa constrictors suffocate while eating? Constrictor snakes use their ribs and muscles to draw in air similar to a bellows, so they don’t suffocate while squeezing and swallowing large prey. Researchers put blood pressure cuffs on different sections of constrictors’ bodies and fitted the snakes’ heads with small helmets that measure air flow […]
White dwarfs are the degenerate remnant of stars with masses lower than 10 times that of the Sun and the endpoint of stellar evolution for more than 97% of Galactic stars. White dwarfs are an important tool in studying the star formation history of the Milky Way, the late phases of stellar evolution, and to […]
Brain cells communicate through neurotransmitters like glutamate or dopamine, the substances we got used to reading about when learning about brain function. However, it seems this is not the only way neurons can communicate. A new study suggests that certain proteins can act as brain messengers in the brain. Previously, only pathological proteins like tau […]
It is not risky at all to assert that fundamental physics has not been in good shape in the last forty years or so, not because of lack of work, talent, conjectures and resources, but because few really big advances (as big as, say, the discovery of thermodynamics, of relativity, of quantum field theory, or […]
Mice brains wired with “competitive” neurons Researchers studying social behaviors of mice have identified that competition among the rodents was tied not only to social status but to the activation of neurons in the brain associated with feelings of ambition, decision making and rank. Results of the study, published in Nature, could be used to […]
Chemistry • DIPC Computational and Theoretical Chemistry • Materials
If we are asked what a metal is, most likely we would think almost automatically in those elements that we see as lustrous solids, good conductors of heat and electricity, that tend to form positive ions, and with a particular chemical bond that keep metal atoms in place, the metallic bond. And all of this […]