Two studies shed additional light on a murky question: How did the cosmic fog that enveloped the universe in its early days dissipate?
Herb Silverman for On Faith’s Guest Voices, reflecting on the life and contributions of Paul Kurtz, who died October 20 at the age of 86: Paul Kurtz was a founder and a leader, more so than anyone else I have ever known. Before there were the new atheists and their best-selling books, there was Paul…
In a key step toward creating a working quantum computer, Princeton researchers have developed a method that may allow the quick and reliable transfer of quantum information throughout a computing device The finding, by a team led by Princeton physicist Jason Petta, could eventually allow engineers to build quantum computers consisting of millions of quantum…
Transform the global food system in the next 40 years by using crops to feed people instead of fattening livestock and producing fuel; eliminate food waste; and overhaul the use of fertilizers like nitrogen that are polluting waters around the world. Those are some of the conclusions in a study led by a University of…
By using novel methods developed for tracing the origins of virus outbreaks, researchers say they have identified present-day Turkey as the homeland of the Indo-European language family. The international team used computational methods analyzing words from more than 100 ancient and contemporary languages, as well as geographical and historical data. By doing so, the scientists…
Imagine a scientist who does an experiment, and doesn’t like the results. Perhaps the scientist had hoped to see a certain pattern of findings and is disappointed that it’s not there. Suppose that this scientist therefore decided to manipulate the data. She goes into the spreadsheet and adds new, made-up data points, until she obtains…
Physicists have found the strongest evidence yet of quantum effects fueling photosynthesis. Multiple experiments in recent years have suggested as much, but it’s been hard to be sure. Quantum effects were clearly present in the light-harvesting antenna proteins of plant cells, but their precise role in processing incoming photons remained unclear. But in an experiment published Dec. 6 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a connection between coherence — far-flung molecules interacting as one, separated by space but not time — and energy flow is established.