Category archives: Science

Topological insulators are electronic materials that have a bulk band gap like an ordinary insulator but have conducting states on their edge or surface. The conducting surface is not what makes topological insulators unique, but the fact that it is protected due to the combination of spin-orbit interactions and time-reversal symmetry. Inducing magnetism in topological […]

In March 2020, a multidisciplinary task force (so-called Basque Modelling Task Force, BMTF) was created to assist the Basque health managers and Government during the COVID-19 responses. BMTF works creating a model based on different approaches: stochastic processes, statistical methods and artificial intelligence. The efforts and challenges to develop a flexible modelling framework able to […]

Is this the first time there has been a fire of this magnitude? If there have been fires like this before, what damage was done to the mountain’s vegetation and how long did it take it to recover? Fires are quite common in the higher areas of Kilimanjaro at the end of the dry seasons […]

The so-called van der Waals materials consist of two-dimensional layers bound by weak van der Waals forces. After the isolation of graphene, the field of two-dimensional van der Waals materials has experienced an explosive growth and new families of two-dimensional systems and block-layered bulk materials have been created. This growth has been fuelled mainly by […]

Going through a break up is kind of traumatic. We all have felt it sometime, not only your heart is broken but your brain feels like out of sync and incapable of proper functioning. Well, this is not just an impression, new research has found there is a relationship between a broken heart and a […]

To date, more than 50 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and more than 1,2 million have died. It is a global problem, affecting everyone, but we are still learning how it infects, how it behaves, what causes harm to humans. The virus is spread by the droplets produced by an […]

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (<50 nm). Graphene ribbons, introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine the edge and nanoscale size effect in graphene, have emerged as a promising material for nano electronics, as they combine many of the extraordinary properties of graphene with a […]

The concept of crystal is very old, and it is strongly related to symmetries. Basically, a crystal is a system with a repeated pattern through space. For instance, in ice the water molecules form a hexagonal pattern, giving rise to many different macroscopic forms. But, can it happen that a system presents a pattern not […]

Preamble In the period 2015-2019, I was hired as a mathematician by a biology department in order to perform a research that eventually would become my doctoral thesis. This text is adapted from the last chapter of that thesis, “Cycles and interactions: A mathematician among biologists” (full text available here). The symbiosis between mathematics and […]

Adsorption commonly is understood as the reversible binding of molecules and atoms from the gaseous or liquid phase on surfaces, mostly of highly porous adsorbent media. In chemisorption a single layer of molecules, atoms or ions is attached to the adsorbent surface by chemical bonds; in physisorption only van der Waals forces are involved. Adsorption […]