Category archives: Science

MI weekly selection #145

MI weekly selection #145

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Carbon dating suggests Quran fragments could be older than once thought Fragments of what’s believed to be the world’s oldest Quran may be older than previously thought, even possibly predating the prophet Muhammad, according to researchers at Oxford University. The text was initially tested by Birmingham University, which used radiocarbon dating to suggest the fragments […]

Porphyrin complexes for high efficiency solar cells

Porphyrin complexes for high efficiency solar cells

ChemistryCondensed matterEnergyMaterials

By DIPC

As the search for renewable energy sources has intensified, the discovery of efficient and cheap technologies for exploiting the energy from the sunlight has emerged as a key challenge. Higher efficiency plays an increasingly important role in making competitive solar cell designs as the price of silicon continues to drop. At present, the actual silicon […]

Recent advances in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries

Recent advances in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries

ChemistryCondensed matterEnergyMaterials

By Francisco R. Villatoro

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in portable electronic devices and electric vehicles since their introduction by Sony in 1991. Safety is an important concern since about two billion cells are produced every year but with a one-in-200,000 failure rate. Excessive temperature variations and high temperatures over the melting point of the metallic lithium can cause […]

MI weekly selection #144

MI weekly selection #144

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

New mathematical definition may help identify chaos A new mathematical definition looks to describe the potential for chaos. The theory is roughly based on something akin to entropy, the degree of randomness within a system. “You could say you have chaos if you have exponential growth of uncertainty. That could happen in relatively simple systems […]

MI weekly selection #143

MI weekly selection #143

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Scientists in Antarctica find evidence of neutrinos’ existence The existence of cosmic neutrinos has been confirmed by scientists at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. Researchers combed through years of data collected by sensors buried in the ice and pinpointed 21 ultra high-energy muons created by rare neutrino interactions with other particles. They say the […]

Diets to live longer

Diets to live longer

Health

By Ignacio Amigo

One of the first things that we are taught in school is that living things are born, grow, reproduce and die. We can think of aging as the line that connects these events, lifespan as the length of that line and senescence as the step that goes from reproducing to dying. The three terms bring […]

MI weekly selection #142

MI weekly selection #142

Humanities & Social SciencesScienceTechnologyWeekly Selection

By César Tomé

Small Jupiter-like exoplanet viewed directly by Earth-based telescope An exoplanet resembling a young Jupiter has been found by astronomers using an Earth-based telescope, the Gemini Planet Imager in Chile, according to findings published online in Science. The gas giant has been dubbed 51 Eridani b and is about 96 light-years from Earth. “To detect planets […]