Blowing soap bubbles never fails to delight one’s inner child, perhaps because bubbles are intrinsically ephemeral, bursting after just a few minutes. Now, French physicists have succeeded in creating “everlasting bubbles” out of plastic particles, glycerol, and water, according to a new paper published in the journal Physical Review Fluids. TheContinue Reading
The human brain is an incredible, complex web of connections. Cells called neurons send signals from region to region, and their communication allows us to do everything from forming thoughts to accessing memories. But for nearly 6 million Americans, neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and Alzheimer’s diseaseContinue Reading
Phylogeny can only tell scientists so much, though. The team wondered if differences might come down to the animals’ neurophysiology. But they weren’t sure which aspect of the brain to measure. In the past, researchers often used an animal’s total brain volume as a proxy for cognitive power. Basically, theContinue Reading
In March 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic began to sweep into the US, it dawned on a group of engineers chatting in the cafeteria of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory how devastating the respiratory disease would become. They knew that more—and better ventilators—would help. Within a couple of weeks, theyContinue Reading
To understand the importance of those three ducks and the virus they were carrying, we need to take a quick tour through Flu School. Lesson One: The flu virus family tree is vast and sprawling; it contains types—A, B, C, D—and subtypes, designated with Hs and Ns. (Those are shortContinue Reading
So you’ve got a nice house with a garage where you can charge your electric vehicle—you’re living in the future. You’re also—sorry!—far from original: 90 percent of US EV owners have their own garages. But woe to the urbanites. Chargers built into apartment parking lots are few and far between.Continue Reading
Quantum Latin squares were quickly adopted by a community of theoretical physicists and mathematicians interested in their unusual properties. Last year, the French mathematical physicists Ion Nechita and Jordi Pillet created a quantum version of Sudoku—SudoQ. Instead of using the integers 0 through 9, in SudoQ the rows, columns, andContinue Reading
This story originally appeared on The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Small, bluish-gray, and speckled, the marbled crayfish would be easy to overlook. Except for the fact it is likely to be coming to a pond or river near you soon—if it is not already there.Continue Reading
So what if, instead of launching atop a chemical rocket, your object could just ride up on a cable that reaches all the way into space? That’s what would happen with a space elevator. Space Elevator Basics Suppose you built a giant tower that is 400 kilometers tall. You couldContinue Reading
Europe’s attitude toward nuclear power is split between boosters and naysayers, with each country putting its own spin on the technology. France is by far the continent’s biggest provider of nuclear power and wants to export its technology to other countries within Europe, says Raphael Hanoteaux, a senior policy advisorContinue Reading
