meltwater Author: Alun Hubbard, Professor of Glaciology, Arctic Five Chair, University of Tromsø I’m striding along the steep bank of a raging white-water torrent, and even though the canyon is only about the width of a highway, the river’s flow is greater than that of London’s Thames. The deafening roar and rumble of the cascading […]
pair-density-wave Scientists have revealed a new phase of matter in candidate topological superconductors that could have significant consequences for condensed matter physics and for the field of quantum computing and spintronics. Researchers at the Macroscopic Quantum Matter Group at Cornell University have discovered and visualized a crystalline yet superconducting state in a new and unusual […]
Imagine this: you’re visiting the chimpanzee enclosure at a zoo. Some sit on the grass, chewing on leaves and scratching their heads, while others hang from the wooden beams. In a corner, a female is holding her baby. You can’t help but picture a human mom doing it in the exact same way. For a […]
In humans, biological sex is determined by the chromosomes X or Y. People having a Y chromosome are typically male, as this small chromosome –which evolution seems to be doing away with– contains a gene which determines the formation of male sexual organs in the embryo. However, despite its small size, the Y chromosome is […]
amorphous Scientists have dedicated their efforts to studying topological materials, focusing on the shape, or topology, of their electronic structures. These materials exhibit unique properties that have the potential to be harnessed for next-generation devices, despite their invisible nature in real space. Initially, it was believed that only crystalline materials, characterized by highly ordered atoms […]
More than genes and upbringing determine animal personalities: There’s a good dose of chance in the mix, too. In the age-old debate about nature versus nurture — whether our characteristics are forged by our genes or our upbringing — I have an answer for you. It is both. And it is neither. I’m a behavioral […]
How close can a rocky planet be to a star, and still sustain water and life? Where is the edge of habitability? A recently discovered exoplanet may be key to solving that mystery, providing important insights about conditions at the inner edge of a star’s habitable zone and why Earth and Venus developed so differently […]
Light emission (fluorescence or phosphorescence) in organic molecules, in the vast majority of cases, proceeds from the lowest energy excited state irrespective of the excitation energy used. This is known as the Kasha’s rule, which states that most of the molecules are emissive from the lowest energy, same (ground state) spin multiplicity, S1 excited state […]
wildfires Author: Aaron Bell, Researcher, PhD Candidate, Biology, University of Saskatchewan With the summer solstice and first official day of summer on June 21, hot and dry conditions have already given rise to a very active fire season across Canada. The smoke from these fires has drifted great distances, disrupting activities and causing a nuisance […]
According to a recent study , humans have displaced a significant volume of water from the ground and relocated it, resulting in an Earth shift of approximately 80 centimetres (31.5 inches) eastward solely between 1993 and 2010. According to prior climate models, researchers had initially estimated that humans extracted around 2,150 gigatons of groundwater between […]