Machine-learning systems are increasingly worming their way through our everyday lives, challenging our moral and social values and the rules that govern them. These days, virtual assistants threaten the privacy of the home; news recommenders shape the way we understand the world; risk-prediction systems tip social workers on which children to protect from abuse; while […]
Aerosol pollution reduces Pacific’s storm activity Increasing aerosol pollution from China and India has had a cooling effect, leading to reduced storm activity in the Pacific Ocean in recent decades, according to a study that relied on computer simulations. As a result, as the governments of those countries aim to reduce aerosol pollution, they also […]
Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are layered compounds which can be thinned down to the single-layer limit. While mechanical exfoliation generates atomically thin TMD flakes possessing an area of a few square microns, chemical and physical methods provide high-quality monolayers on large-area substrates, which are suitable for actual technological applications. TMDs are a class of van […]
If you follow anything related to genetics, you’re probably thinking that it is old news, as the first draft was already published in 2000, but actually there were still missing parts. Now, thanks to new sequencing technologies, the human genome is completely sequenced. In the journal Science , six papers published back-to-back explain how this […]
Plants that inhabit the Earth have the incredible ability to grow continually for hundreds of years, and always towards the light of the sun, which provides them with the necessary energy to sprout. At the source of this growth are changes in their environment, such as variations in light, temperature and humidity. But new stimuli […]
Data from Mars rover suggest presence of rare rock Scientists who studied images collected by a Mars rover say the planet may contain ignimbrite, a rare rock created by powerful volcanic eruptions. The presence of ignimbrite, also found on Earth, would suggest eruptions on Mars were more violent than thought. Space Robotic rat can handle […]
CFM • DIPC • DIPC Photonics
Usually, optical activity is understood as the ability some substances have to change the handedness of polarized light when it goes through them. Molecules that show optical activity have no plane of symmetry. So-called chiral matter broadly describes structures for which left- or right-handed mirror images are non-superimposable, or, equivalently, that lack improper rotation axes […]
Blasting out Earth’s location with the hope of reaching aliens is a controversial idea – two teams of scientists are doing it anyway If a person is lost in the wilderness, they have two options. They can search for civilization, or they could make themselves easy to spot by building a fire or writing HELP […]
One of the biggest difficulties of bringing new therapeutic methods into clinical practice is targeted delivery. A recent study shows the potential of using a gel for topical gene therapy. Recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa is a genetic disease that affects proper skin formation. The affected people have an extremely fragile skin, which often suffers from […]
Lava creates dunes on surface of volcanic Jupiter moon Using observations from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft and complex mathematical simulations, researchers discovered new information about the mysterious dunes on the surface of Io, Jupiter’s third-largest moon. The dunes are formed not by wind as on Earth but by “effusive” lava streams from Io’s hundreds of active […]