All of the giant planets of our Solar System, except Uranus, emit more energy in the long wavelengths than what they receive from the Sun in the short wavelengths. This excess of energy was generated in the early stages of the planetary formation and it is being radiated slowly to space as the planets keep […]
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Graphene shown to produce ultrashort laser pulses Researchers have discovered that graphene can absorb light over a broad range of wavelengths, allowing it to be used to create ultrashort laser pulses of color. The discovery could mean that graphene, a thin, strong conductive material, could be used to create small, economical ultrashort-pulse lasers used in […]
Quantum computing is one of the most interesting fields of study nowadays, both from theoretical and pragmatic point of views. A universal quantum computer can potentially solve certain problems, as factorizing numbers, much faster and with fewer resources than a classical one . This developing technology is based on the use of quantum mechanics as […]
One of hottest topics in theoretical physics today is, of course, quantum gravity. The fact that, almost a hundred years after the born of the quantum theory, we still not have a functional theory that describes gravity at a microscopic level has become one of the most attractive problems for the majority of physicists (even […]
In our eyes, the cornea and crystalline lens project an image of the world onto the retina. There, this image is sampled by the rods and the cones —the light-sensitive cells of the vertebrate eye—, coded as a sequence of electrical signals and preprocessed by other neurons before being sent to the brain via the […]
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Competing gravity of galactic clouds probably caused band of gas A gravitational tug-of-war between the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud may be responsible for the huge ribbon of gas at the halo of the Milky Way. Astronomers in the U.S. and Germany measured how much oxygen and sulphur there is in the […]
One of the multiple tasks of quantum chemistry is the rationalization of the bonding between atoms to form molecules. In this vein, two main aspects are clearly distinguished: i) the binding energy, or the energy gained by the molecule when two atoms are bonded; and ii) the bond order (how many bonds are the responsible […]
Almost four years after being launched to space, the Herschel Space Observatory ran out of helium the past April 29. This implied losing the ability to stay as close as possible to absolute zero (at about 2K, indeed) which also meant the death of the spacecraft, since this mission was designed to observe the universe […]
It is happening again, right now. In multiple localities across Eastern North America, as the end of the spring warms up the soil, legions of hundreds of thousands of insects are being awakened from their underground hides. They reach the surface at night, climb up to the trees, and moult for the last time in […]
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“Junk” DNA in plants not needed to remain healthy So-called junk DNA is just that — junk, according to a study by researchers at the University of Buffalo in New York. In a study of the carnivorous bladderwort plant, they found that the part of the genome not responsible for coding proteins in plants is […]