Category: Quantum Stuff

When COVID-19 disrupted the world’s economies last year, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel use fell by two billion metric tons. As some of the lead scientists of the Global Carbon Project (an international group that tracks greenhouse gas emissions), we wrote about how to keep this emissions drop going, including how COVID… Continue reading Global Emissions Rebound to Pre-COVID Levels

Structuresstructure (noun): the arrangement of or relation between the parts of something complex; the organization of interrelated elements. 1. My partner trained as an architect, and now he is cursed. His curse is not just working like an architect works, with grueling hours and implacable clients, although that’s true. His curse is seeing like an… Continue reading How to Build a Society for All to Enjoy – Issue 107: The Edge

GLASGOW, Scotland—The U.S. and China announced a wide-ranging plan for climate cooperation yesterday to inject momentum into global efforts to contain warming. The joint declaration comes as climate talks speed toward a conclusion here, and officials hope that cooperation between the world’s two largest emitters could pave the way for progress at this year’s summit.… Continue reading U.S.-China Deal Boosts Climate Talks in Final Stretch

Few groups of animals encapsulate the extremes of longevity more than fish. While coral reef pygmy govies survive for less than ten weeks, Greenland sharks can endure more than 500 years. So when a team of biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, wanted to explore the genetics of aging, they grabbed their fishing gear.… Continue reading Genes Reveal How Some Rockfish Live up to 200 Years

A diamond that formed deep in the earth’s mantle contains a mineral never seen before in nature. The discovery is a rare glimpse into the deep mantle and may help reveal new information about the structure of the planet at depths of more than 660 kilometers. This, in turn, can help geologists better understand how… Continue reading New Mineral Discovered in Deep-Earth Diamond

When Mozambique’s civil war ended in 1992, more than 1 million people had lost their lives. Another 5 million were displaced. And the carnage was not restricted to humans: Gorongosa National Park, a 1,500-square-mile mosaic of habitats that was home to a richness of life almost unparalleled on Earth, had become a battlefield. Almost every… Continue reading Nature’s Fear Factor – Issue 107: The Edge

Suppose you are trying to transmit a message. Convert each character into bits, and each bit into a signal. Then send it, over copper or fiber or air. Try as you might to be as careful as possible, what is received on the other side will not be the same as what you began with.… Continue reading Researchers Defeat Randomness to Create Ideal Code

When learning a foreign language, most people fall back on traditional methods: reading, writing, listening and repeating. But if you also gesture with your arms while studying, you can remember the vocabulary better, even months later. Linking a word to brain areas responsible for movement strengthens the memory of its meaning. This is the conclusion… Continue reading How Certain Gestures Help You Learn New Words

Last month, we presented three puzzles that seemed ordinary enough but contained a numerical twist. Hidden below the surface was the mysterious transcendental number e. Most familiar as the base of natural logarithms, Euler’s number e is a universal constant with an infinite decimal expansion that begins with 2.7 1828 1828 45 90 45… (spaces… Continue reading Why e, the Transcendental Math Constant, Is Just the Best

When the first sponge genomes were sequenced in the early 2000s, researchers were surprised to find that sponges not only have roughly as many genes as humans and other complex creatures but also have many of the same genes. Sponges are among the earliest branching lineages on the evolutionary tree of animal life; their simple… Continue reading Sponge Genes Hint at the Origins of Neurons and Other Cells