Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (<50 nm). Graphene ribbons were introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine the edge and nanoscale size effect in graphene. Now, a team of researchers reports the generation of net spins on chiral GNRs (chGNRs) by ketone functionalization. GNRs are […]
In 2021, an investment firm bought 2,000 acres of real estate for about USD 4 million. Normally this would not make headlines, but in this case the land was virtual. It existed only in a metaverse platform called The Sandbox. By buying 792 non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, the firm then owned the equivalent […]
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. In a previous work Jenny […]
Water may be hidden beneath Europa’s icy surface Beneath the 20-kilometer thick ice crust covering Jupiter’s Europa moon, researchers think an ocean awaits. Scientists studying the frozen surface of Greenland have determined Europa is similar enough that its hidden water store could host microbial life. Space Climate crisis leaves parts of world with 50% fewer […]
A gravitational lens is any object that deflects light by gravitation as described by the general theory of relativity; it is analogous to a lens in optics. The prediction of a gravitational lensing effect was confirmed repeatedly in observations on quasars. In 1979 an apparently double quasar was discovered, due to the multiple image of […]
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of people studying Ukrainian on Duolingo, a language learning website and mobile app, has increased by more than 500%. Most of those who are taking up Ukrainian are probably unaware that there is a long-running controversy about this particular form of speech. One side views […]
As we saw in the first entry of this series, traditionally the idea of theoreticity had been understood as a kind of ‘negative’ concept, for theoretical entities or properties were thought about as those that cannot be observed; hence, ‘theoretical’ was more or less a synonym of ‘ un -observable’. Things started to change around […]
Massive protoplanet formed in unexpected way A protoplanet with a mass many times larger than Jupiter’s likely formed as the result of a massive implosion, pulling together gas and dust. Based on the planet’s size and distance from the nearest star, astronomers found that planet AB Aur b didn’t form as they originally thought, but […]
Acute leukemia is characterized by the proliferation and accumulation of hematopoietic progenitor cells (which are able to differentiate to create specialized cell types) in the bone marrow that impede normal blood production. D epending on the cell population affected, it can be classified in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). ALL starts […]
Could it be that even our hands show traces of having evolved for violence? The unique structure of human hands has been extolled as marvelously adapted for precise control and tool use. But they may also betray in their proportions and structure having been selected for killing. This, at least, is a hypothesis posed by […]