George Dyson talks with Martin Eiermann about the definition of life, human progress, and the importance of cognitive autarchy.
In many cases in the developing world, red tape and lack of funding ensure that the best projects go to men. The administrators are not willing to take a risk on a woman, it would seem. Problems get compounded for a woman who already has a family. It would appear almost as if having a…
As universities move from being national institutions to international ones, they shift from managing national reputations to seeking international identities. Reputation management may not be at the forefront of many academics’ minds, but when professors go abroad and meet colleagues who have no idea what kind of institution they come from, their interest may pick…
A new way of determining hair and eye from modern forensic samples can also be used to identify details from ancient human remains, European researchers say. Researchers in Poland and the Netherlands who developed the system dubbed HIrisPlex for forensic analysis said it is sufficiently robust to successfully work on older and more degraded samples…
Astronomers say they’re hot on the trail of real-life alien moons — which could also potentially be viable candidates for habitable worlds, researchers say. Astronomers have found roughly 850 known alien worlds. And as recently announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting, the Kepler spacecraft has picked up 2,740 candidate planets since its 2009 launch….
In the past decade, astronomers have observed clay materials on Mars that seem to indicate large bodies of water once filled the Martian surface. But new research suggests that magma could form some of these slick deposits rapidly, and ancient Mars may not have been as wet as we thought. A region of French Polynesia…
Two diamonds as wide as earring studs have been made to share the spooky quantum state known as entanglement. The feat, performed at room temperature, blurs the divide between the classical and quantum worlds, since typically the quantum link has been made with much smaller particles at low temperatures. Author Metanexus Editors