New Year, New Science
Nature looks ahead to the key findings and events that may emerge in 2013.
Nature looks ahead to the key findings and events that may emerge in 2013.
Given the same raw materials, Mars would have been a better host for life to arise than Earth, which some scientists believe was too flooded for the chemistry of life to gain a toehold. Without at least occasional dry land, the chemistry needed to get life started doesn’t work very well because the molecules to…
The equivalent of an MRI of the sun was created by scientists, who studied high-resolution images of the sun’s surface taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory showing motions on the sun’s surface caused by convection. The findings challenge our existing explanations of the formation of sunspots and magnetic field generation. Author Metanexus Editors
An exploding meteor that blasted its fragments across California’s Gold Country in April has revealed rare evidence of its origin in a single family of asteroids hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, astronomers report. Seventy-seven bits of space debris collected around Sutter’s Mill in El Dorado County, where they fell on April 22, have…
The most significant breakthrough in the laser pulse field in four years provides scientists with a new tool to watch quantum mechanics in action — a world hidden from view until now. The work was also accomplished without using specialized equipment, such as a mile-long particle accelerator or Superdome-sized synchrotron. University of Central Florida professor…
Psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms, may help people with depression, based on two studies that suggest that the drug could have an enduring effect on patients. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 30 healthy volunteers took psilocybin intravenously and had their brains observed with magnetic…
Check out this high-rise in France’s Boulogne-Billancourt re-imagined as an urban eco-village, bursting with greenery. The Natural Evolution building proposal (which comes via eVolo) was developed in response for the increasing need for high-density housing in urban areas. In accordance with that vision, it was developed for Boulogne-Billancourt, the most populous suburb of Paris and…