Category: Quantum Stuff

Predicting complex systems like the weather is famously difficult. But at least the weather’s governing equations don’t change from one day to the next. In contrast, certain complex systems can undergo “tipping point” transitions, suddenly changing their behavior dramatically and perhaps irreversibly, with little warning and potentially catastrophic consequences. On long enough timescales, most real-world… Continue reading Chaos Researchers Can Now Predict Perilous Points of No Return

Better satellite coverage of wildfires and improved climate models are giving scientists a more accurate view of smoke plumes as they drift across the country. These kinds of advances, they say, can help provide earlier warnings to residents endangered by wildfire smoke. A breakthrough in the field occurred during the deadly 2018 Camp Fire in… Continue reading New Tool Helps Predict Where Wildfire Smoke Will Blow

Explore Manish Vira, a urologist at Northwell Health in New York performs prostate biopsy procedures three to five times a week. He inserts 12 needles into specific locations on the prostate gland, identified by MRI images that reveal malignant or suspicious lesions. The samples then go to a pathologist who determines whether cancer is present… Continue reading Cancer’s Got a Lot of Nerve

To avoid errors, you once again add extra information. Here, you send the y-value that corresponds to another predetermined x-coordinate. If the three points do not fall on the same line, there’s an error. And to figure out where the error is, you just send one more value — meaning you’ve sent four numbers total,… Continue reading How Mathematical Curves Power Cryptography

We now know where on the moon NASA astronauts will set foot after more than 50 years’ absence. The agency announced 13 potential landing regions for its Artemis 3 mission during a news conference held on Friday (Aug. 19). All the candidates are clustered near the south pole of the moon, an area of key scientific and exploration… Continue reading NASA Unveils Candidate Landing Sites for Artemis Astronauts

After interminable delays and tens of billions of dollars in spending, NASA’s Statue of Liberty–size Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket is at last nearing its inaugural launch. Taking place as early as August 29, the launch will use the SLS’s 8.8 million pounds of thrust (39.1 million newtons) to send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft and… Continue reading NASA’s Moon-Bound Megarocket Will Send a Spacecraft to an Asteroid, Too

Megan Hall: Every year, the Cancer Community Awards, sponsored by AstraZeneca, presents an individual or organization with the President’s Award. This award recognizes those who are making a meaningful impact in the lives of cancer patients. In 2021, Margaret Stauffer received the President’s Award for her work as the Chief Mission Officer of the Cancer… Continue reading A Lifelong Quest to Improve Mental Health among Cancer Patients [Sponsored]

A similar scenario played out in the 1990s, when a Tennessee naturalist named Lynn Faust read the confident published assertion of a scientist named Jon Copeland that there were no synchronous fireflies in North America. Faust knew then that what she had been watching for decades in the nearby woods was something remarkable. Faust invited… Continue reading How Do Fireflies Flash in Sync? Studies Suggest a New Answer.

Explore In the early 1950s, a group of researchers at the Institute for Advanced Study embarked on a high-tech project. At the behest of John von Neumann and Herman Goldstine, the physicist Hedvig Selberg programmed the IAS’s 1,700-vacuum-tube computer to calculate curious mathematical sums whose origins stretched back to the 18th century. The sums were related to… Continue reading A Numerical Mystery From the 19th Century Finally Gets Solved

The epitome of modern convenience, our toilets make waste disappear with incredible efficiency and ease. We seldom think twice about pulling the lever or about where all that swirls down the pipes ends up afterward. But the massive mazes of sewage pipes underneath our towns and cities ultimately lead to some body of water nearby,… Continue reading We Only Think We Flush It Away