The sun looks immutable, a boring celestial lightbulb that’s always turned on. But this fusion-powered ball of plasma is in constant flux. Every 11 years or so, it swings between slumber and an active, unruly epoch marked by sunspots and solar eruptions, such as flares and plasma outbursts. The sun is now approaching its maximum level of activity in… Continue reading How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction
Normalizing Assad Won’t Solve the Syrian Refugee Crisis
Middle Eastern leaders have been normalizing relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and looking ahead to sending Syrian refugees back to their home country, but it is too early to begin repatriating the 5.5 million Syrians who fled the country to escape the fighting there. Turkey announced plans to repatriate a million Syrian refugees in… Continue reading Normalizing Assad Won’t Solve the Syrian Refugee Crisis
The Fungi Economy, Part 3: Can Climate Modeling from Space Save Our Forests?
Meg Duff: For Science, Quickly, I’m Meg Duff. [CLIP: Show music] Meg Duff: Last week, if you missed it, I was up in Harvard Forest, learning about a hidden economy: underneath our feet, plants and fungi are constantly trading carbon and nutrients. Duff: Trees use carbon as currency to trade with fungi. Scientists have figured… Continue reading The Fungi Economy, Part 3: Can Climate Modeling from Space Save Our Forests?
These Technologies Could Defeat China’s Missile Barrage and Defend Taiwan
Earlier this year, a group of experts from RAND and the Special Competitive Studies Project launched a new wargame effort around China’s invasion of Taiwan—but unlike most D.C.-based wargames, this effort heavily involved members of the commercial technology sector, in order to understand what near-term capabilities might be brought to bear on a Taiwan scenario.… Continue reading These Technologies Could Defeat China’s Missile Barrage and Defend Taiwan
The Biggest Smallest Triangle Just Got Smaller
Consider a square with a bunch of points inside. Take three of those points, and you can make a triangle. Four points define four different triangles. Ten points define 120 triangles. The numbers grow quickly from there — 100 points define 161,700 different triangles. Each of those triangles, of course, has a particular area. Hans… Continue reading The Biggest Smallest Triangle Just Got Smaller
The War in Ukraine, Income Share Agreements, the Tech ‘Cold War’: RAND Weekly Recap
This week, we discuss why comparing the war in Ukraine to World War I is misleading; income share agreements as an alternative to student loans; how India is edging out China in South Asia; how to plan ethical influence operations; parental involvement in schools; and the U.S.-China race for technological supremacy. Photo by Stringer/Reuters Many… Continue reading The War in Ukraine, Income Share Agreements, the Tech ‘Cold War’: RAND Weekly Recap
Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition
In 2019, Noel and her colleagues began collaborating with two theorists who had come up with an easier way of doing the experiment. They had worked out a way of setting aside one qubit that, like a canary in a coal mine, could serve as a bellwether for the state of the entire chain. The… Continue reading Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition
ECOWAS: In Need of Help in Niger?
News reports indicate that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu sought the national legislature’s backing for a possible military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to turn back a coup that toppled the government of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum. An ECOWAS intervention would have a better chance of succeeding if other nations joined… Continue reading ECOWAS: In Need of Help in Niger?
The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It
Scientists have recognized that memory formation is a multistage process since at least the early 1950s, in part from their studies of a patient named Henry Molaison — known for decades in the scientific literature only as H.M. Because he suffered from uncontrollable seizures that originated in his hippocampus, surgeons treated him by removing most… Continue reading The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It
Five Charts That Tell Us About the State of Public Education Right Now
A lot happens every year in U.S. public schools, and it can be hard to keep track of it all. To monitor trends in public education, the RAND Corporation fields over a dozen surveys annually to teachers, principals, and superintendents who are members of the American Educator Panels. These five charts taught us the most… Continue reading Five Charts That Tell Us About the State of Public Education Right Now