A SciDev.Net survey reveals the challenges of applying research insights to policy and practice, and underscores that evidence is not enough.
The universe has no center and no edge, no special regions tucked in among the galaxies and light. No matter where you look, it’s the same—or so physicists thought. This cosmological principle—one of the foundations of the modern understanding of the universe—has come into question recently as astronomers find evidence, subtle but growing, of a…
In a feat of technical mastery, condensed-matter physicists have managed to detect the elusive third constituent of an electron — its ‘orbiton’. The achievement could help to resolve a long-standing mystery about the origin of high-temperature superconductivity, and aid in the construction of quantum computers. Isolated electrons cannot be split into smaller components, earning them…
In the 1600s, Europeans exploring the American southeast wrote of a purification ritual practiced by the native people, involving dancing, vomiting, and large amounts of what the travelers called black drink. Served from shell cups, the highly caffeinated tea was brewed from the shrub Ilex vomitoria, a species of holly. In a new study, researchers…
Gen Xers are surprisingly blasé about climate change. A survey in 2009 found members of Generation X were largely disengaged from climate change. Two years later, these American adults became slightly more so, a follow-up survey has revealed. Americans in this age group generally are not well-informed about climate change, nor are they highly concerned…
At the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, causing severe but selective extinction. While that is widely accepted, it has remained unclear exactly what the mechanisms were that caused extinction of ocean-dwelling organisms. Proposed explanations include global darkness due to blocking of sunlight with…
Archaeologists argue that drought caused by climate variation played a major role in the decline and fall of Mayan civilization.