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First 2D discrete time crystal on a quantum computer

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 5 min read Home If you’ve ever sat by a quiet pond and tapped the surface of the water with your finger once every second, you’d expect to see a ripple travel outward once […]

Humanity’s oldest known cave art has been discovered in Sulawesi

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 5 min read Home Authors: Maxime Aubert, Professor of Archaeological Science, Griffith University; Adam Brumm, Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University; Adhi Oktaviana, Research Centre of Archeometry, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional Indonesia (BRIN), and […]

Highest resolution map of dark matter to date

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 4 min read Home Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe—showing its influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets. The findings, using new […]

Your longevity may be tied to your parents, but not directly through DNA

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 2 min read Home Could your parents’ lifestyle choices affect how long you live? And could this effect not be directly related to your genes? Scientists studying my favourite roundworm (C. elegans) have discovered […]

How quantum heat engines gain efficiency by staying out of balance

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 5 min read Home One of the most fascinating ideas in physics is how we can turn heat into useful work. This is the basic principle behind all sorts of engines, like the ones […]

Invited researcher

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 4 min read Home Authors: Ben Mather, ARC Early Career Industry Fellow, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne; Adriana Dutkiewicz, ARC Future Fellow, Sedimentology, University of Sydney; Dietmar Müller […]

Why the mad artistic genius trope doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 5 min read Home Author: Daisy Fancourt, Professor Psychobiology and Epidemiology, UCL Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear with a knife during a psychotic episode. Ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky developed schizophrenia and spent […]

New Radio-Frequency Quadrupole design with symmetric direct transversal fields for efficient compact particle accelerators

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 3 min read Home Author: Victor Etxebarria, professor, Dept. Electricidad y Electrónica. Fac. Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad del País Vasco-EHU A Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) is a resonant cavity with a cylindrical symmetry divided in […]

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 6 min read Home Author: Marika Taylor, Pro-vice-chancellor, Professor, University of Birmingham In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called “Is the […]

Targeting WDR5/ATAD2 signaling by the CK2/IKAROS axis demonstrates therapeutic efficacy in T-ALL

Enable Focus Mode A+ A++ 🌙 5 min read Home Author: Marta Irigoyen is a postdoctoral researcher at CIC bioGUNE T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematological malignancy with a poor prognosis and limited options for targeted therapies […]

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Sir Humphry Davy, in a discourse delivered at the Royal Society in 1825 said:

Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply, — there are always new worlds to conquer.

Every time we make a new scientific discovery we sense where the limit of knowledge is, we feel where ignorance begins. Science is, for certain, what we think we know, but more precisely, it is being aware of the boundaries of the unknown.

In this blog we try to translate cutting edge scientific research into an educated lay-person language; consequently, as we do this, we will be Mapping Ignorance. Our goal is very simple: to spread both the latest developments in science and technology and a scientific worldview facilitating the access to it. To achieve this Mapping Ignorance is written by specialists in each field of expertise coordinated by a dedicated editor; the aim of them all is to make sometimes abstruse but otherwise wonderful scientific and technical information enjoyable by the interested general reader.

Mapping Ignorance is an initiative of the Chair of Scientific Culture of the University of the Basque Country under the Project Campus of International Excellence – Euskampus.