Anyone who has studied, even superficially, some thermodynamics has encountered the word adiabatic very early. This is because adiabatic processes are extremely useful to understand the basics of the field. An adiabatic process is any process that occurs without heat (or matter) entering or leaving a system. In general, an adiabatic change involves a fall […]
Biology • Biotechnology • Ethics • Evolution • Genetics
Ever since the 1993 film based on Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park was released, the thought of reviving extinct species using molecular biology techniques has been on the forefront of the collective imaginary. The idea seemed pretty simple: reading the genetic code of fossilized animals would provide the instruction manual to bring them back to […]
Humanities & Social Sciences • Science • Technology • Weekly Selection
Gravitational waves from binary black holes milder than thought Black holes rotating around each other on a collision course create milder gravitational waves than previously thought, a study published online in Science suggests. Scientists studying pulsars with super-sensitive equipment for 11 years looking for evidence of gravitational waves coming from binary black holes haven’t found […]
A lot has been said and written about what makes women physically attractive, from having full lips and/or breasts to being shorter than a man, to having a symmetrical face to having a low waist-hip ratio (WHR), all being indicators, at least in theory, of potential reproductive fitness . For instance, a low WHR has […]
Japan is known to be one of the world technological leaders. Having to import many of the raw materials and fuels its industry needs, it has been basic research and the development of technologies based on it what have transformed Japan in a window into the future. An important part of that future is based […]
Our universe is not stable according to the currently measured values of the top quark and Higgs particle masses. There is a non-null probability that at any instant in the next billions of years the present “false vacuum” will change to a “true vacuum” by quantum tunneling, destroying all matter, energy and spacetime without any […]
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A predicted collision between pair of black holes The prediction late last year of a collision between a pair of supermassive black holes in a galaxy about 3.5 billion light-years from Earth has gotten support from a new study by scientists at Columbia University. Last year, scientists noticed a flickering pulse from the galaxy’s quasar […]
Usually, the concept of exciton is linked to that of nonmetallic crystal: an electron-hole pair in a crystal that is bound in a manner analogous to the electron and proton of a hydrogen atom. It behaves like an atomic excitation (hence the name) that passes from atom to another and may be long-lived. Exciton behaviour […]
Life is sustained by chemical reactions, and the countless reactions that take place in the cells of living organisms that are responsible for every biological process are known as energetic metabolism. Among the others, the brain stands as the most energy-consuming organ, accounting for up to 20 % of the body’s total haul while representing […]
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Could we instantly I.D. pathogens by their glow? It can take days to identify pathogens by swabs and cultures. A new technique uses spectroscopy to see immediately the light bacteria emit. Futurity Old, distant galaxy baffles scientists A galaxy described as the oldest and most distant to be observed has perplexed scientists, and may cause […]