Category: Quantum Stuff

Thomas Gehrmann remembers the deluge of mathematical expressions that came cascading down his computer screen one day 20 years ago. He was trying to calculate the odds that three jets of elementary particles would erupt from two particles smashing together. It was the type of bread-and-butter calculation physicists often do to check whether their theories… Continue reading The Algorithm That Lets Particle Physicists Count Higher Than Two

Gray blotches poke up from the murky depths of Lake Michigan in an image on maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen’s computer screen. These are the remains of the SS Wisconsin, an steel-hulled steamer that sank in 1929 off Kenosha, Wis., after a storm engulfed the vessel during a routine passage between Chicago and Milwaukee. The shipwreck… Continue reading Dozens of Shipwreck Discoveries Anticipated in New Marine Sanctuary

Let me tell you what it’s like to be an astrobiologist. I painted a white picket fence this summer. No one asked me to. It was a task I’d set myself without realizing what a long-winded and frustrating process it would be. But eventually that endless scraping, priming, painting, and maneuvering settled into something therapeutic,… Continue reading What Is Life? – Issue 106: Intelligent Life

I had barely stepped foot over the threshold and I already felt claustrophobic. I wanted to turn back. People shuffled into the room in front of me, while somebody else stood directly behind me, a little too close. It felt hard to escape. I could see Nola lying in a bed to my right. She… Continue reading Why These Children Fell into Endless Sleep – Issue 107: The Edge

Our brains can play the worst tricks on us. They are always looking to explain and categorize incoming stimuli, sometimes perceiving threats out of the flimsiest bits of information gleaned from our bodies and our environment. Every so often they go into overdrive, inducing the worst kinds of illnesses—hallucinations, seizures, paralysis, coma—even when there’s no… Continue reading The Neurologist Who Diagnoses Psychosomatics – Issue 107: The Edge

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. have been plummeting since their recent peak in mid-September, and practically everyone has grown tired of COVID precautions. But cases plateaued in early November, and winter is coming. Experts warn it is not safe to let down our guard just yet. Some western states, such as Alaska, Colorado and North… Continue reading This COVID Winter May Cause Fewer Deaths yet Still Bring a Surge

An elegant ballet of proteins enables modern cells to replicate themselves. During cell division, structural proteins and enzymes coordinate the duplication of DNA, the division of a cell’s cytoplasmic contents, and the cinching of the membrane that cleaves the cell. Getting these processes right is crucial because errors can lead to daughter cells that are… Continue reading At the Dawn of Life, Heat May Have Driven Cell Division

The jubilation of the Paris climate agreement, where delegates from around the world triumphantlydeclared the climate crisis would finally be tamed, will have felt very hollow to many in the US in the six years since. Following the landmark 2015 deal to curb dangerous global heating, the US has experienced four of its five hottest… Continue reading ‘The Whole Place Feels Wrong’: Voices across America on What the Climate Crisis Stole

Children have fared better with the virus than adults. Immunologists are still trying to figure out why Credit: SA Health & Medicine, December 2021Advertisement Beginning in about January of this year, when the first COVID-19 vaccines started becoming available to essential workers and then, within the next few months, to most all adults, friends of… Continue reading Essential Links in the Immunity Web

From the COVID vaccine to pulsars to computer programming, women are at the source of many scientific discoveries, inventions and innovations that shape our lives. But in the stories we’ve come to accept about those breakthroughs, women are too often left out. Each season at Lost Women of Science, we’ll look at one woman and… Continue reading Lost Women of Science, Episode 2: The Matilda Effect