Author: Martha R. Villabona works at Subdirección General de Cooperación Territorial e Innovación Educativa of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, where she coordinates the area of multiple literacies. Vaccination is one of the topics vulnerable to online disinformation. Although opposition to vaccines has existed since they became widespread in the 19th century […]
Once upon the time, or to be precise between 200 and 150 000 years ago, the incipient humanity was struggling with climatic conditions in its land of origin, Africa. A long glacial era, M2 , had made it difficult to find food. And, although to what extent the population was reduced to a few hundred […]
Fossil dating method points to earlier human emergence Humans were likely around about 36,000 years earlier than previously though. Researchers calculated the age of fossils found in Africa using the single crystal argon-argon dating method, analyzing pumice and ash left behind by ancient volcanic eruptions upon which the fossils were resting. Inverse Supernovas responsible for […]
Any person with some basic knowledge of chemistry is familiar with the concept of electrolysis, i.e., the production of a chemical reaction by passing an electric current through an electrolyte – a liquid that conducts electricity as a result of the presence of ions. It has found major applications since the early days of modern […]
“The last star will slowly cool and fade away. With its passing, the universe will become once more a void, without light or life or meaning.” So warned the physicist Brian Cox in the recent BBC series Universe. The fading of that last star will only be the beginning of an infinitely long, dark epoch […]
mTOR has nothing to do with Norse mythology, it stands for “mammalian target of rapamycin” or “target of rapamycin in mammalian cells”. mTOR is involved in important cellular processes, including growth, proliferation, motility, survival, protein synthesis, transcription and autophagy. The history of rapamycin is so suggestive that I cannot avoid mentioning it: in the 1960s […]
Antiprotons appear to mirror their protons Protons and their antiprotons are mirror images of each other, according to Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment’s findings. The experiment made more than 24,000 comparisons of oscillations to precisely measure the charge-to-mass ratios. Science News Ancient black holes may be harboring dark secret Black holes that have been around since […]
For the first few million years of human evolution, technologies changed slowly. Some three million years ago, our ancestors were making chipped stone flakes and crude choppers. Two million years ago, hand-axes. A million years ago, primitive humans sometimes used fire, but with difficulty. Then, 500,000 years ago, technological change accelerated, as spearpoints, firemaking, axes […]
Since humans are not very good at predicting the future, even if the help of a magic ball, scientists have developed a new system based on artificial intelligence to help us predict the future risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease by analysing certain parameters in brain scans. The research, recently published in the journal Diagnostics […]
Trove of species discovered under Antarctic ice Researchers drilling into the ice of Antarctica have found close to 100 different species living in extreme conditions there. The little-known habitat is home to worms, bryozoans and other creatures that thrive in cold and dark conditions. Gizmodo Surface cooling may have carved Pluto’s unique landscape The weird […]