December 12, 2023 3 min read Mysterious green displays in the sky dubbed “mesospheric ghosts” can sometimes accompany the dramatic red atmospheric lights called sprites By Meghan Bartels Red sprites above a supercell thunderstorm as lightning illuminates the cumulonimbus cloud below near Hay Springs, Nebraska. If you’re ever lucky enough to spot the atmospheric drama… Continue reading Green Glow of ‘Mesospheric Ghosts’ Decoded
Tag: Quantum Stuff
An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe
Most researchers thought Lipton had cooked up the most complex possible vector addition systems, meaning he’d raised the lower bound as high as it could go. The only thing missing, in that case, would be an upper bound to go with it — that is, a proof that there could be no system in which… Continue reading An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe
Cats Kill a Staggering Number of Species across the World
December 12, 2023 4 min read Domestic cats are cherished human companions, but a new study shows the enormous breadth of species the felines prey on when they are left to roam freely By Jack Tamisiea Exotic species such as pythons, Asian carp and cane toads often dominate the invasive species discourse. Few biological invaders,… Continue reading Cats Kill a Staggering Number of Species across the World
The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World
Before Erwin Schrödinger’s cat was simultaneously dead and alive, and before pointlike electrons washed like waves through thin slits, a somewhat lesser-known experiment lifted the veil on the bewildering beauty of the quantum world. In 1922, the German physicists Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach demonstrated that the behavior of atoms was governed by rules that… Continue reading The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World
‘A-Team’ of Math Proves a Critical Link Between Addition and Sets
The lists have fixed lengths, and each bit can be either 0 or 1. You add them together by adding each entry to its counterpart in another list, with the rule that 1 + 1 = 0. So (0, 1, 1, 1, 0) + (1, 1, 1, 1, 1) = (1, 0, 0, 0, 1).… Continue reading ‘A-Team’ of Math Proves a Critical Link Between Addition and Sets
She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain
You’re also an advocate for women in science. Where did that drive come from? Nobody in my family had a graduate degree before me. Because my dad’s in sports, there wasn’t a huge emphasis on academics. Then I ended up in a space that — I don’t want to say I had no business being… Continue reading She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain
PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Freshwater Fish, Yet Most States Don’t Warn Residents
Bill Eisenman has always fished. “Growing up, we ate whatever we caught — catfish, carp, freshwater drum,” he said. “That was the only real source of fish in our diet as a family, and we ate a lot of it.” Today, a branch of the Rouge River runs through Eisenman’s property in a suburb north… Continue reading PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Freshwater Fish, Yet Most States Don’t Warn Residents
Male Songbirds Need Daily Vocal Practice to Woo Females
December 12, 2023 4 min read Birds might sing in the morning because they need a vocal workout By Olivia Ferrari A male zebra finch (Taeniopygia castanotis). Most professional singers agree that practice makes perfect. And now research published in Nature Communications shows that songbirds also rely on a daily vocal workout—if they want to… Continue reading Male Songbirds Need Daily Vocal Practice to Woo Females
Hottest Survivable Temperatures Are Lower Than Expected
CLIMATEWIRE | Death can happen at lower temperatures than an established scientific measure of “heat survivability” indicates, according to new research from Arizona State University. A recent paper published in Nature Communications found that the primary methodology to measure deadly heat — called “wet-bulb global temperature” — is inadequate, resulting in artificially low mortality estimates from extreme heat events. The… Continue reading Hottest Survivable Temperatures Are Lower Than Expected
Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms
The new observations from Levan, Rastinejad and others clash with this quick and clean image of neutron star mergers. “It doesn’t make any sense to have a 10-second burst from a system that lives only a fraction of a second,” said Ore Gottlieb, a computational astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute who was not involved with… Continue reading Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms