Article archives

MI weekly selection #399

MI weekly selection #399

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

Calcite layers boost hardness of ants’ bodies A layer of calcite covers the bodies of leaf-cutting worker ants, allowing them to take on much bigger enemy ants, according to findings published by Nature Communications. Researchers tested ants with and without the thin calcite layer and found that the mineral makes the ants’ exoskeletons at least […]

Strong coupling between propagating phonon polaritons and organic molecules observed for the first time

Strong coupling between propagating phonon polaritons and organic molecules observed for the first time

Condensed matterMaterials

By DIPC

The so-called van der Waals materials consist of two-dimensional layers bound by weak van der Waals forces. After the isolation of graphene, the field of two-dimensional van der Waals materials has experienced an explosive growth and new families of two-dimensional systems and block-layered bulk materials have been created. This growth has been fuelled mainly by […]

Coronavirus in the brain

Coronavirus in the brain

Neurobiology

By José Ramón Alonso

To date, more than 50 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and more than 1,2 million have died. It is a global problem, affecting everyone, but we are still learning how it infects, how it behaves, what causes harm to humans. The virus is spread by the droplets produced by an […]

MI weekly selection #398

MI weekly selection #398

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

New Horizons finds light in the darkness of space The New Horizons space probe, which has moved beyond its exploration of Pluto, has found evidence that space itself has its own glow. When researchers removed visible light sources from images of the open universe sent back from the space probe, now about 4 billion miles […]

Magnetism in graphene nanoribbons induced by a pair of boron atoms

Magnetism in graphene nanoribbons induced by a pair of boron atoms

Condensed matterDIPC Electronic PropertiesMaterials

By DIPC

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (<50 nm). Graphene ribbons, introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine the edge and nanoscale size effect in graphene, have emerged as a promising material for nano electronics, as they combine many of the extraordinary properties of graphene with a […]

The ‘prehistory’ of philosophy of science (5):  What a beautiful world!

The ‘prehistory’ of philosophy of science (5): What a beautiful world!

Philosophy of science

By Jesús Zamora Bonilla

We shall conclude with this entry our discussion of Plato’s view of science, the main conclusions of the two former ones being, in the first place, the idea that ‘scientific knowledge’ ( epistēmē ) consists in the knowledge of eternal, intelligible Forms, whereas material things are imperfect copies of the former, and only graspable with […]

Fake news: the third-person effect

Fake news: the third-person effect

Sociology

By Invited Researcher

The third person effect phenomenon was described by Davidson in 1983 . People tend to think that media influence other people more than themselves. This self reinforcement is a key mechanism to understand the different effects caused by the media on their audience, since people are motivated to maintain a positive image of themselves by […]

MI weekly selection #397

MI weekly selection #397

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

Social learning in otters Otters learn to survive by observing others in their social circles. The experiment with Asian short-clawed otters, in which the animals learned to open containers filled with meatballs after watching their peers do it, “is the first to show evidence of social learning and long-term memory in Asian short-clawed otters,” says […]