Tag: Quantum Stuff

The Milky Way’s rotating disk of gas and dust gives rise to graceful spiral arms, which make up the galaxy’s most active star formation sites. Now researchers using an airplane-borne telescope high in Earth’s atmosphere have found a mechanism for how magnetic fields shape star birth in the dense filaments, or “bones,” that wind their… Continue reading How Magnetic Fields Control Galactic Growth

A few years ago a team of chemists unboiled an egg. Boiling causes protein molecules in the egg to twist around one another, and a centrifuge can disentangle them to restore the original. The technique is of dubious utility in a kitchen, but it neatly demonstrates the reversibility of physics. Anything in the physical world… Continue reading How Physicists Cracked a Black Hole Paradox

Every evening around the world trillions of zooplankton, many smaller than a grain of rice, hover hundreds of feet below the surface of the sea, waiting for their signal. Scientists long considered these tiny animals to be drifters, passive specks suspended in the ocean, moved by the whims of tides and currents. And yet, just… Continue reading Greatest Migration on Earth Happens under Darkness Every Day

We all might wish for minds as retentive as a hard drive. Memory file created. Saved. Ready for access at any time. But don’t yet go wishing for the memory performance of AI. Artificial neural networks are prone to a troublesome glitch known, evocatively, as catastrophic forgetting. These seemingly tireless networks can keep learning tasks… Continue reading Even Machine Brains Need Sleep

Torrents of charged particles continuously lift off the sun’s atmosphere and radiate outward at millions of kilometers per hour, yielding a solar wind so immense that its limit defines the outer edge of our solar system. Despite the vast reach of this wind, its formation has long been a puzzle. Now a new analysis argues… Continue reading Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind

Many scientists are loath to involve themselves in policy debates for fear of losing credibility. They worry that if they participate in public debate on a contested issue, they will be viewed as biased and discounted as partisan. That perception then will lead to science itself being branded as partisan, further weakening public trust in… Continue reading The Public Wants Scientists to Be More Involved in Policy Debates

Explore Three years ago almost to the day, my 7-year-old hugged his teacher goodbye, we walked home together, and then we pretty much remained there for the next 13 months. COVID-19 irrevocably changed all of our lives, and now that I have a little cognitive distance, I find myself wondering what we’ll remember about this… Continue reading The Lasting Power of Good Memories