Tag: Quantum Stuff

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

Explore Nearly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the primordial plasma of the infant universe cooled enough for the first atoms to coalesce, making space for the embedded radiation to soar free. That light—the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—continues to stream through the sky in all directions, broadcasting a snapshot of the early universe that’s picked… Continue reading Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures

There have been surprisingly few experimental efforts to explore the possible avenues by which Hawai‘i’s snails might have crossed oceans to arrive in their new home. In fact, to date there has been precisely one study on this topic of which I am aware. In 2006, Brenden Holland, a researcher in the biology department at… Continue reading How Snails Cross Vast Oceans

How does your math timeline intersect with your history as a trans person? I transitioned at the tail end of grad school. When I was coming out, I didn’t know of any other trans people in math. I remember I found one article by this trans guy who wrote a short account of his experiences.… Continue reading Emmy Murphy Is a Mathematician Who Finds Beauty in Flexibility

For the first time, researchers have sequenced all 3,117,275,501 bases of our genetic code Credit: Martin KrzywinskiAdvertisement The human genome is at last complete. Researchers have been working for decades toward this goal, and the Human Genome Project claimed victory in 2001, when it had read almost all of a person’s DNA. But the stubborn… Continue reading See How Scientists Put Together the Complete Human Genome

An aggressive plant pathogen that wipes out olive trees is projected to cost Italy billions of euros over the next 50 years. Xylella fastidiosa—a bacterium named for its pickiness when grown in the laboratory—was detected in southern Italy in 2013. It is now designated a “quarantine organism” in the European Union: infected trees, some hundreds… Continue reading AI Diagnoses Devastating Olive Tree Infection

Researchers have developed an approach to break down a class of long-lasting chemicals that they say is easier and cheaper than the harsh methods currently used. The work also hints at how these chemicals, which have been linked to health problems, fall apart — a finding that could help to ultimately destroy these persistent pollutants. Per-… Continue reading Cheap New Method Breaks Down ‘Forever Chemicals’