February 10, 2025 2 min read Coffee Boosts Beneficial Gut Bacterium Researchers found a strong connection between coffee and the gut microbiome By Maggie Chen edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier The thought of a steaming cup of coffee helps to pull many people worldwide out of bed in the morning. Scientists have consistently linked this… Continue reading Coffee Boosts Beneficial Gut Bacterium
Category: Quantum Stuff
Men Are More Prepared for Fatherhood Than We Think
I like to tell my undergraduates that hormones predispose organisms, including people, to shift their energy among different life goals. When we become parents, hormones help redirect energy from mating to parenting. That being said, most male mammals don’t get involved in parenting, but there are some important exceptions. For humans, we know that women… Continue reading Men Are More Prepared for Fatherhood Than We Think
Why the Egg Industry Is Losing the Battle with Bird Flu
Greg Herbruck knew 6.5 million of his birds needed to die, and fast. But the CEO of Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch wasn’t sure how the family egg producer (one of the largest in the U.S., in business for over three generations) was going to get through it, financially or emotionally. One staffer broke down in Herbruck’s… Continue reading Why the Egg Industry Is Losing the Battle with Bird Flu
Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab?
Quantum gravity is one of the biggest unresolved and challenging problems in physics, as it seeks to reconcile quantum mechanics, which governs the microscopic world, and general relativity, which describes the macroscopic world of gravity and space-time. Efforts to understand quantum gravity have been focused almost entirely at the theoretical level, but Monika Schleier-Smith at… Continue reading Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab?
Trump Team Looks to Drastically Cut Weather and Climate Agency
CLIMATEWIRE | The Trump administration is looking to halve the NOAA workforce, say two former officials of the agency, a member of Congress and a congressional staff member. The draconian cut, they say — which would reduce the number of NOAA employees from about 12,000 to 6,000 — threatens to cripple an agency that provides… Continue reading Trump Team Looks to Drastically Cut Weather and Climate Agency
Google’s AI Can Beat the Smartest High Schoolers in Math
February 10, 2025 3 min read Google’s AI Can Beat the Smartest High Schoolers in Math Google’s AlphaGeometry2 AI reaches the level of gold-medal students in the International Mathematical Olympiad By Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazine Google DeepMind’s AI AlphaGeometry2 aced problems set at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Wirestock, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo A year ago… Continue reading Google’s AI Can Beat the Smartest High Schoolers in Math
NIH Funding Cuts Would Hobble U.S. Medical Research, Insider Says
The U.S. National Institutes of Health announced on February 7 it was immediately cutting some $4 billion a year in funding to biomedical researchers nationwide. The move would reduce the share of NIH grants paid to “indirect” costs—lab upkeep, administration and operation—to 15 percent, cutting their historical rate almost in half, overnight. In the announcement,… Continue reading NIH Funding Cuts Would Hobble U.S. Medical Research, Insider Says
How Corals Fight Back against Warming Seas
February 11, 2025 4 min read How Corals Fight Back against Warming Seas Most corals can’t relocate, but they’re finding ways to beat the heat By Rohini Subrahmanyam edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Many corals have creative ways to fight the dangers of warming seas. imageBROKER.com GmbH & Co. KG/Alamy Stock Photo Deep underneath the… Continue reading How Corals Fight Back against Warming Seas
New Proof Settles Decades-Old Bet About Connected Networks
To certain mathematicians — Sarnak among them — the Alon-Boppana bound was an entrancing challenge. Could they construct graphs, they wondered, that reached this limit? Gambling on Randomness In a landmark paper published in 1988, Sarnak, Alexander Lubotzky and Ralph Phillips figured out how to. Using a highly technical result in number theory by the… Continue reading New Proof Settles Decades-Old Bet About Connected Networks
Firearm Forensics Is Still Troubled by Systemic Failure
February 11, 2025 4 min read Firearm Forensics Is Still Troubled by Systemic Failure Three forensic examiners at the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory last year mistakenly concluded that cartridge cases from a crime scene matched a specific firearm. The error exposes systemic flaws that risk wrongful convictions By Nicholas Scurich Forensics training image showing… Continue reading Firearm Forensics Is Still Troubled by Systemic Failure