A few weeks after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, many scientific institutions felt the need to issue public statements against that war. At the time, I was president of the Commission for the History of Physics within the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and, as such, I took part […]
One of the great unanswered questions in physics concerns the nature of neutrinos, the lightest known particles with mass. A process called neutrinoless double beta decay could provide the answer. In ordinary double beta decay, two neutrons inside a nucleus transform into two protons, emitting two electrons and two antineutrinos. In the neutrinoless version, only […]
For millennia, farming in Switzerland did not reduce plant diversity but helped increase it, researchers have shown in a detailed reconstruction covering the past 7000 years. Only recent decades paint a different picture. The fall of the Roman Empire and major plague outbreaks: These events not only affected people but also reduced plant diversity on […]
Authors: Sergi Muria Maldonado, Professor de Didàctica de les Matemàtiques, Universitat de Barcelona; Anton Aubanell Pou, Professor de l’Institut de Formació Continuada i professor jubilat de Didàctica de les Matemàtiques, Universitat de Barcelona, and Jordi Font González, Professor de Didàctica de les Matemàtiques, Universitat de Barcelona 2026 marks 100 years since the death of Antoni […]
When astronomers in the eighteenth century first turned powerful telescopes toward the Milky Way, they noticed something puzzling: tight, spherical swarms of stars scattered across the sky. Now we know that each contains hundreds of thousands of suns packed into a region just a few dozen light-years across. These objects, known today as globular clusters […]
Author: Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin University In the Pilbara of Western Australia, some of Earth’s oldest rocks lie beneath the sky, as they have for billions of years. They are dark, weathered volcanic rocks, close to 3.5 billion years old, cut by veins and stewed by deep time. Their survival is remarkable. Most […]
Author: José Luis Granados Mateo is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) and a member of the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (iHPS) research group. His work focuses on history and philosophy of science, science and values, and the epistemology of scientific practices. A […]
Androgenetic alopecia is characterized by a progressive hair loss. This represents a cosmetic issue, treated with a limited set of pharmacological tools such as minoxidil or finasteride. While these therapies can be effective in some patients, their results are often inconsistent and frequently accompanied by unwanted side effects. This has driven researchers to search for […]
Chemistry • DIPC Computational and Theoretical Chemistry • Quantum chemistry
Ever since the birth of quantum mechanics in the early twentieth century, chemists have struggled with a fundamental paradox. On one hand, Lewis dot structures and molecular drawings teach us to think of electrons as localized entities—either sitting neatly in lone pairs or shared directly between two bonding atoms. On the other hand, Schrödinger’s wave […]
Authors: Thomas M. Pitot, Chercheur postdoctoral en microbiologie, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) and Catherine Girard, Professeure-Chercheure en microbiologie, Université Laval Viruses play a major role in the functioning of ecosystems. They profoundly influence the dynamics of microbial communities, flow of matter and global biogeochemical cycles. Yet despite their abundance and ecological importance, many […]