Is our universe just one of many? The idea may sound a bit bizarre, but it could be a reality, scientists say.
Better lithium ion batteries have led to an explosion in availability of plug-in passenger cars. And now, thanks to relatively cheap electricity and the simplicity of the electric drivetrain, electric vehicles have even more potential for use in the extremely cost-sensitive public transportation arena—a concept that is only just taking root. In particular, two projects…
A neuroscience team has successfully translated signals in the brains of six healthy volunteers into letters to enable them to spell messages. Likened to a “typewriter for the brain,” the advance may help paralyzed people use their brains to communicate. Some of these paralyzed patients have been forced to rely on eye blinks or muscle…
In a recent paper written specifically with social scientists in mind, Stuart West, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, lays down the power of the selfish gene. It’s a great paper that takes a look at why so many misconceptions have taken hold and lays out, in nonspecialist language, the reasons why most criticisms of…
On an overcast afternoon in late April, physics professors and students crowded into a wood-paneled lecture hall at Columbia University for a talk by Nima Arkani-Hamed, a high-profile theorist visiting from the Institute for Advanced Study in nearby Princeton, N.J. With his dark, shoulder-length hair shoved behind his ears, Arkani-Hamed laid out the dual, seemingly…
This is truly the era of the megafoundation. The private-philanthropic sector in the United States has experienced an explosion in the net worth and annual-giving potential. According to the Foundation Center, as of March 8, 2012, total foundation giving in the United States (circa 2010) was about $20.5 billion.
For the past five billion years, the expansion of the Universe has been speeding up, powered by the mysterious repulsive force known as “dark energy.” But thanks to a new technique for measuring the three-dimensional structure of the distant Universe, astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have made the first measurement of the cosmic…