Scientists are using funhouse images of faraway galaxies to learn how dark matter shaped the cosmos we see today.
Galaxy clusters are the largest stable structures in our Universe. Seven billion light years away and with two million billion times the mass of our Sun, a cluster nicknamed “El Gordo” – “the Fat One” in Spanish – has been spotted and is said to be currently undergoing a merger and growing even larger. Galaxy…
Research on the link between implicit race preference and brain activity could be used to prevent unintended consequences of race bias
The pursuit of knowledge is now a global enterprise. Scientific American and Nature have teamed up on this special report on how this trend is changing the way science is done, and how it informs the world. Author Metanexus Editors
The helpfulness of grandmothers is the reason humans don’t die in their thirties the way chimpanzees do, new research shows – and may even explain our bigger brains. Computer simulations show that with only a little grandmotherly care, animals with chimpanzee lifespans evolve to reach a human level in less than 60,000 years. “Grandmothering was…
A U.K.-based research team has created a fuel cell that can power a lightbulb, with the aid of a high flying bacteria found in the Earth’s atmosphere. Bacterially-run fuel cells may provide a cheap, portable source of energy for villages without electricity and they’re a potential source of green, nearly emissions-free energy for the future….
Supermassive black holes appear to occupy the center of almost all galaxies. When they are actively swallowing matter, these black holes can power energetic jets that shine brighter than the entire rest of the galaxy, and can shoot matter free of it. Despite the mass and energy involved, however, the origin of these jets has…