Category Archives: Science
Towards advanced room-temperature valleytronic nanodevices.
So-called “valleytronics” is a new type of electronics that could lead to faster and more efficient computer logic systems and data storage chips in next-generation devices. Valley electrons are so named because they carry a valley degree […]
A higher spin generalization of Weyl fermions without equivalence in elementary particle physics
Back in 1929, theoretical physicist Hermann Weyl predicted the existence of a new elementary particle with intriguing properties. Specifically, it would be massless (like a photon), have half-integer spin (like an electron) and exist in two mirror-image versions (like left- […]
Singin’ in the Brain: why brain tumour patients are singing on the operating table
Authors:
Zoë Firth & Priscila Borba Borges, students, European Master’s in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL+) and Adrià Rofes (advisor)
‘I can’t control my brain’. So sang Weezer in their 2001 hit ‘Island in the Sun’; how fitting, then, […]
The road to quantum gravity (3): The speed of light and the origin of mass
In the previous chapter of this series, we went over the subjective, relative separation of the network of events known as Spacetime into space and time. The speed of light played a major role in the discussion.
In particular, we […]
Why SnSe is so thermoelectrically efficient
With the possible exception of Avogadro’s number, which was in reality defined and made popular by Stanislao Cannizzaro, many things in the sciences are usually named after the person who makes them popular. The Seebeck effect is an example. Originally […]
Weaving for a killer
Spiders build their webs using the silk they synthesize and secrete from their spinning glands, structures located in the back of the abdomen. The most primitive species have few glands and build their nets with fairly uniform silks. The most […]
Chromatic multiphoton serial microscopy can generate brain-wide atlas-like colour datasets with subcellular resolution
In 1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe stipulated a physical limit for the maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy: 0.2 micrometers, or 200 nanometers (the shortest wavelength for visible light, the extreme limit of violet). This meant that scientists could distinguish […]
Validity of the inhomogeneous Kibble-Zurek mechanism in the quantum domain
On 8 October 2013, following the discovery at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider of a new particle that appeared to be the long-sought Higgs boson predicted by the theory, it was announced that Peter Higgs and François Englert had been awarded […]
Mapping PTEN: basic research to assist precision oncology
Author: Rafael Pulido is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at the BioCruces Health Research Institute
In the last two decades, the easiness in the obtaining of genetic information from patient biological samples, together with the advanced knowledge on the physiological consequences […]
An experimental protocol for two-probe scanning tunneling microscopy
A region containing a maximum of potential that prevents a particle on one side of it from passing to the other side is called a potential barrier. The net in a tennis court is in a certain way a potential […]