How easy is it to create life? It happened here at least once. Does that give scientists studying the creation of life from non-life (abiogenesis) much to work with?
Sometimes, particles can pass through walls. Though it sounds like science fiction, the phenomenon is well documented and even understood under the bizarre rules that govern the microscopic world called quantum mechanics. Now, scientists have measured the timing of this passing-through-walls trick more accurately than ever before, and report their results in a recent issue…
Until quite recently we knew of only one life-harbouring planet in a single planetary system — adrift within a universe of more than a billion trillion stars. Our home was that single speck, the lone bulb in a great cosmic garden, and it raised essentially the same question: is this all? Or are there more?…
Shalosh B. Ekhad, the co-author of several papers in respected mathematics journals, has been known to prove with a single, succinct utterance theorems and identities that previously required pages of mathematical reasoning. Last year, when asked to evaluate a formula for the number of integer triangles with a given perimeter, Ekhad performed 37 calculations in…
On November 8, 1800, fire ravaged the federal War Office, in Washington. The agency’s files went up in smoke, leaving a gaping hole in the nation’s historical record. “The most important window into the early republic had basically been boarded up,” says Christopher H. Hamner, a military historian at George Mason University. Not anymore. Through…
As family and friends of Neil Armstrong gathered in Ohio on Aug. 31 for a private memorial service, NASA paid tribute to the Apollo astronaut, calling him a great American and a space hero. “He never dwelled on his remarkable accomplishments or sought the limelight,” Kennedy Space Center director and former astronaut Robert Cabana said…
Scores of animal scientists employed by public universities have helped pharmaceutical companies persuade farmers and ranchers to use antibiotics, hormones, and drugs to make their cattle grow bigger ever faster. With the use of these products, the average weight of a fattened steer sold to a packing plant is now roughly 1,300 pounds—up from 1,000…