Category: Quantum Stuff

Last spring, a team of nearly 1,000 cosmologists announced that dark energy — the enigmatic agent propelling the universe to swell in size at an ever-increasing rate — might be slackening. The bombshell result, based on the team’s observations of the motions of millions of galaxies combined with other data, was tentative and preliminary. Today,… Continue reading Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case.

February 12, 2025 3 min read The Latest on Bird Flu Strains and Sick Cats Scientists have reported a new strain of bird flu in Nevada dairy cattle. And viral spread in pet cats has fueled worries over increased risk of exposure to humans By Tanya Lewis edited by Lauren J. Young Editor’s Note (2/20/25):… Continue reading The Latest on Bird Flu Strains and Sick Cats

At first, life on Earth was simple. Cells existed, functioned and reproduced as free-living individuals. But then, something remarkable happened. Some cells joined forces, working together instead of being alone. This transition, known as multicellularity, was a pivotal event in the history of life on Earth. Multicellularity enabled greater biological complexity, which sparked an extraordinary… Continue reading How Did Multicellular Life Evolve?

“Those chemical modifications that decorate [histones] and modify gene expression — they’re metabolites, full stop,” said Finley, the cancer biologist. “Chemical modifications themselves are metabolites, and their removal is dependent on metabolites.” Fifteen years ago, when Kathryn Wellen was a postdoc studying cancer cells, she discovered that the epigenetic marks on histones change in response… Continue reading How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies

CLIMATEWIRE | EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has one week to tell President Donald Trump whether the agency could abandon its authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. His decision stands to cast EPA into a monumental fight over its ability to reduce carbon emissions, potentially reverberating beyond Trump’s presidency. If Zeldin attempts… Continue reading Trump Gives EPA One Week to Decide on Abandoning Climate Pollution Regulation

February 13, 2025 2 min read ‘Hot Potato’ Plants Engineered to Flourish in Heat Waves A genetic tweak keeps potatoes efficient in the heat By Julian Nowogrodzki edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier When a scorching heat wave struck Illinois in June 2022, crop physiologist Katherine Meacham-Hensold hoped her team’s new bioengineered potato variety would survive… Continue reading ‘Hot Potato’ Plants Engineered to Flourish in Heat Waves

On a low hill near the coast of Maine, the fresh petals of double daffodils shake frills of gold and peach in a gusting breeze. It is the middle of May, a clear blue sky overhead, and the lacy burgundy foliage of peonies and new stalks of twiggy curly willow are poking through swaths of… Continue reading Why You Should Look for ‘Slow Flowers’ Grown without Dangerous Chemicals That Dominate the U.S. Market

The three boundaries divvied up the solar system planets equally well. But the XUV and sunlight shorelines cut very different swaths through the population of rocky planets orbiting M dwarfs, with more worlds falling on the airless side of the XUV dividing line. “We don’t know exactly where the cosmic shoreline sits for the M… Continue reading The Road Map to Alien Life Passes Through the ‘Cosmic Shoreline’

In 1960 Marthe Gautier left the lab where she had discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome and went on to have a successful career as a pediatric cardiologist. For decades, she remained silent as her former colleague Jérôme Lejeune continued to take credit for this pioneering discovery, and history wrote her out of the… Continue reading This Researcher Discovered the Cause of Down Syndrome, But For 50 Years Got None of the Credit

LEVIN: Well, I think that we have an opportunity as research scientists to dig really deep into particular ideas of our choosing, but we don’t really get a chance ourselves even to talk to other people deeply in other fields, and I think that’s going to be a real pleasure. We’re going to home in… Continue reading New Conversations, Deep Questions, Bold Ideas in Season Four of ‘The Joy of Why’