How did the complex organisms on Earth arise? This is one of the big open questions in biology. A team of researchers has come a step closer to the answer. The researchers succeeded in cultivating a special archaeon and characterizing it more precisely using microscopic methods. This member of the Asgard archaea exhibits unique cellular […]
A model of a physical system that can be solved exactly and the dynamics of which are characterized by regular rather than chaotic motion is called an integrable model. Integrable models can occur in Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics, with the harmonic oscillator being an example of such a model in both cases. Integrability has […]
Chemistry • Computer science • Condensed matter • Materials • Physics
Water has puzzled scientists for decades. For the last 30 years or so, they have theorized that when cooled down to a very low temperature like -100 ºC, water might be able to separate into two liquid phases of different densities. Like oil and water, these phases don’t mix and may help explain some of […]
Author: José R. Pineda got his Ph.D. from University of Barcelona in 2006. Since 2007 he has worked for Institut Curie and The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. Currently, he is a researcher of the UPV/EHU. He investigates the role of stem cells in physiologic and pathologic conditions. Cell migration is key to […]
When you collect vast amounts of data, most of them will likely be irrelevant or uninteresting. But, hidden in all that noise, you may find a jewel. The data where one scientific jewel, a supernova, has just been found is the collection of observations by the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) project. HFF drew on the […]
The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile’s Atacama Desert has inspired engineers to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars. Researchers used high-resolution electron microscopy and advanced spectroscopic imaging techniques to gain a precise understanding of how microorganisms modify both naturally occurring […]
Electrical stimulation of the spinal cord can help recover mobility in some paralysed patients. However, the mechanism underlying this partial recovery of function remains unknown. A recent human study has confirmed the involvement of a group of cells previously identified in mice, paving the way to targeted treatments. In a recently published study in Nature […]
Anthropology • Archaeology • Ethics • Genetics • History
About two-thirds of Jews today – or about 10 million people – are Ashkenazi, referring to a recent origin from Eastern and Central Europe. They reside mostly in the United States and Israel. Ashkenazi Jews carry a particularly high burden of disease-causing genetic mutations, such as those in the BRCA1 gene associated with an increased […]
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the most important modes of climate variability worldwide, with large impacts on the weather conditions in many regions, and thus on agriculture and economy. It is related to changes in the sea surface temperatures in the Tropical Pacific Ocean. Periods with higher temperatures cause the so-called […]
Nanothreads are one-dimensional covalently bonded materials, with all “backbone” bonds saturated in the organic sense, the first of which was made from polymerization of benzene in the solid state. Nanothreads are thicker than conventional hydrocarbon polymers such as polyethylene and thinner than traditional nanowires: as ladder polymers, they are examples of the thinnest possible rigid […]