Terahertz (THz) radiation is all around us. For example, this page emits blackbody radiation mainly in the THz region (broadly from 0.3 THz to 30 THz). Because terahertz radiation begins at a wavelength of around one millimeter and proceeds into shorter wavelengths, it is sometimes known as the submillimeter band, and its radiation as submillimeter […]
Teeth play a central role in the ecology of most vertebrates – for catching prey, processing food and even attracting a mate. It’s no surprise that scientists such as ourselves have long been interested in how teeth first evolved. For many years we regarded shark teeth, with their conveyor belt system of tooth replacement, as […]
Just to take stock of what we have encountered in the previous entries of this series, regarding the ideas of contemporary philosophy of science than can find some kind of ‘ancestor’ in the works of ancient ‘philosophers’, we can mention Plato’s and Aristotle’s discussion about what are the essential differences and relationships between ‘scientific’ and […]
Paralyzed man writes on screen with his mind A man paralyzed from his neck down was able to imagine writing words and have them appear on a screen. Researchers attached a pair of electrodes to an area of the man’s brain associated with finger and hand movement, and after he imagined he was writing the […]
Two-dimensional (2D) materials are extraordinary for two main reasons. One is the set of mechanical properties that makes those materials a versatile playground where multiple modelling objects are possible, from the thinnest membranes with minuscule bending rigidity to very stiff plates, all with very reproducible parameters. The other reason is that both the electronic and […]
By now, we’re all experts in the common symptoms of the oh so omnipresent COVID-19 – say, for example, dry coughing, fever, and loss of smell ( Sauer, 2021 ). While we’re all hyper-vigilant about th ese symptoms, a new factor behind the spread of this virus may be on the rise: language. That’s right: […]
People might once have considered oxygen a human right. But the pandemic has revealed that access to oxygen – in a pure form, for medical use – is a luxury in most low and middle-income countries. Getting access to pure oxygen for medical treatments is a complicated, expensive and often very dangerous business. The current […]
Cerebellum may have been key to human evolution Researchers have found differences between the human cerebellum and those of chimpanzees and rhesus macaques that may have been fundamental to human evolution. Scientists examined DNA from the prefrontal cortices and cerebellums of all three and found that methylation patterns were different in humans, especially in the […]
Real life is sometimes very different from laboratory settings. Take superconductivity, for example. In order to reach, it you either need extremely low temperatures, extremely high pressures or a combination of both; something that makes very difficult to conceive an everyday application out of a laboratory. Something similar happens with other new materials, but in […]
“ There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, 1818 Increasing advances in material’s science have enabled the design and production of materials capable of inducing specific cell behaviors, such as proliferation, migration or differentiation. Consequently, we are now able […]