Category archives: Humanities & Social Sciences

Mechanics and thermodynamics are two of the main pillars of physics. Mechanics, the branch of physics that studies movement, is considered to be well established since the publication of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). Thermodynamics, the science dealing with heat and temperature, enjoyed its golden age in the 19th century, and was the […]

We ended the first article of this series introducing the man who very likely is the first skeptic philosopher properly speaking, Gorgias of Leontini, and who, as we saw, is said to have claimed, 1) that the being is not (or ‘there is nothing’), 2) that if some being existed, it could not be known […]

Graphene, carbon nanotubes help spiders spin stronger webs Several spiders sprayed with mixtures of water and either graphene particles or carbon nanotubes went on to weave markedly stronger webs, according to researchers at the University of Trento in Italy. The scientists found that webs made by spiders sprayed with the nanotubes produced the strongest silk […]

Cosmic Rays as Thunderstorm Probes Radio waves generated by cosmic rays provide an unprecedented view of the elusive electric fields in thunderstorms. Physics U.S. agencies to develop organs-on-chips The NIH, FDA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will collaborate on the development of 3D miniature models of organs and tissues on microchips that will be […]

It is widely accepted that low carbon technologies will contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mostly those coming from carbon dioxide, and thus slow down the global warming. That’s why most of the largest economies in the world have committed to reduce their gas emissions by supporting an unprecedented transition from the current fossil-fuel based […]

Diagram shows newly-found giant magma reservoir underneath Yellowstone A huge reservoir of mostly solid hot rock has been found underneath a magma chamber beneath Yellowstone National Park, part of the vast volcanic plumbing of the area diagrammed in a study published in Science. This system has been there for about 17 million years, and scientists […]

Capitanian event a mass extinction A group of paleontologists would like to add a sixth mass extinction event that occurred at the end of the Capitanian age to the five generally accepted in science. Researchers have linked mass extinctions in China during that time period 260 million years ago with a major die-off in what […]

Intellectual protection via patents and copyright provisions, among other mechanisms, has been defended on the grounds that, without it, intellectual works would not be produced in the first place. Consequently, the monopoly granted by the patents or the copyright was considered a second best. This rational has been challenged in recent times, as it did […]

We, philosophers, tend to be more skeptical than the average person (though, if you know a little bit of the theories of some philosophers, I would understand that you take my claim with a grain of skepticism). In this series of entries, however, I will take you to a short visit to some of the […]

Magnetic bands around sun may help predict solar flares Tracking the movements of traveling magnetic bands in the sun’s atmosphere may help predict solar flares, which can cause damaging power problems on Earth and wreak havoc on satellites, according to a study published in Nature Communications. Solar flares are at their worst when formed by […]