All posts tagged: Scientists

Scientists Say: Metal-Organic Framework

Scientists Say: Metal-Organic Framework

Published by skeptic

3-D: Short for three-dimensional. This term is an adjective for something that has features that can be described in three dimensions — height, width and length.  atmosphere: The envelope of gases surrounding Earth, another planet or a moon. atom: The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. carbon dioxide: (or CO2) A colorless, odorless gas produced by all animals when the oxygen they inhale reacts with the carbon-rich foods that they’ve eaten. Carbon dioxide also is released when organic matter burns (including fossil fuels like oil or gas). Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, the process they use to make their own food. chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen …

Watch the first sperm whale birth caught on video by scientists

Watch the first sperm whale birth caught on video by scientists

Published by skeptic

ancestor: A predecessor. It could be a family forebear, such as a parent, grandparent or great-great-great grandparent. Or it could be a species, genus, family or other order of organisms from which some later one evolved. For instance, ancient dinosaurs are the ancestors of today’s birds. (antonym: descendant) Atlantic: One of the world’s five oceans, it is second in size only to the Pacific. It separates Europe and Africa to the east from North and South America to the west. audio: Having to do with sound. behavior: The way something (often a person or other organism) conducts itself or acts towards others. calf: (plural: calves) The name of young animals in a range of mammalian species, from cattle to walruses. Caribbean: The name of a sea that runs from the Atlantic Ocean in the East to Mexico and Central American nations in the West, and from the southern coasts of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico down to the northern coasts of Venezuela and Brazil. The term is also used to refer to the culture of nations …

Scientists solve difficult quantum problem using ordinary computers

Scientists solve difficult quantum problem using ordinary computers

Published by Jenni Sidey

Quantum computing’s edge looked closer after a hard physics problem seemed beyond classical machines. But a new result shows compressed math and smarter algorithms can match or beat that benchmark, raising fresh questions about where true quantum advantage really begins. For years, quantum computers have carried a bold promise. They could solve problems so complex that even the world’s best classical computers would fail. That promise fueled a global race among scientists and technology companies to prove “quantum advantage,” the point where quantum machines outperform traditional computing systems. Now, physicists at the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute and collaborators at Boston University have shaken that narrative. Using advanced mathematics, tensor networks and clever coding, the team solved a difficult quantum physics problem that another group had claimed only a quantum computer could handle. The breakthrough shows that classical computers may still have far more power than many researchers expected. In fact, some of the calculations were completed on a personal laptop. “Whenever we see these kinds of claims, we’re …

The Universe Is Full of ‘Impossible’ Black Holes. Now Scientists Know Why

The Universe Is Full of ‘Impossible’ Black Holes. Now Scientists Know Why

Published by skeptic

An international team of astrophysicists has found evidence that the universe recycles black holes, merging them to form even larger ones. Gravitational waves recorded in recent years show that some of the heaviest black holes within star clusters exhibit clear signs of being “second-generation” black holes—products of past collisions—and therefore could not have originated from the collapse of a massive star. Impossible Black Holes The evolutionary theory of stars explains that, at the end of the lives of the most massive stars, their cores compress until they form a point so dense that it curves space-time to infinity. This is the classic black hole, with masses 10 to 40 times that of the sun. There are also supermassive black holes, in the center of galaxies, with millions or billions of solar masses, whose origin is related to processes that occurred in the earliest moments of the universe. Between these two extremes lies a contested category: black holes with masses between 40 and 100 solar masses. They are too heavy to be born after the death …

Scientists discover why deadly lung scarring from IPF refuses to heal

Scientists discover why deadly lung scarring from IPF refuses to heal

Published by Jenni Sidey

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis slowly turns the lungs stiff and scarred, but researchers may have found why the damage keeps building. Their work points to a survival signal inside key cells, and to a treatment approach that could help the lungs recover. Every breath depends on millions of tiny air sacs inside the lungs working smoothly. In people with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, that delicate system slowly breaks down. Healthy lung tissue becomes stiff and scarred. Oxygen struggles to move into the bloodstream. Even simple activities can leave patients exhausted and gasping for air. Doctors have long known that scar-forming cells called fibroblasts play a major role in the disease. These cells normally help repair injured tissue. Once healing is complete, many fibroblasts die through a natural process called apoptosis, which acts like the body’s cleanup system. In pulmonary fibrosis, that process fails. A new study from researchers at National Jewish Health and collaborating institutions may finally explain why. The research, published in Nature Communications, found that a protein called BCL-2 helps harmful fibroblasts avoid …

What happens when people get downvoted on Reddit? Scientists uncovered a surprising answer

What happens when people get downvoted on Reddit? Scientists uncovered a surprising answer

Published by José Betancourt

Receiving a thumbs-down on social media does not push people away from the conversation, but instead tends to encourage them to post more while softening their tone. A new study published in the Journal of Marketing Research provides evidence that negative peer feedback prompts users to remain engaged rather than retreating into isolated communities. These findings suggest that allowing downvotes on social platforms might help moderate extreme discussions without silencing individual voices. Social media platforms continuously experiment with ways for users to interact and evaluate the posts of their peers. While almost all platforms feature a button to express approval, few allow people to explicitly express negative feedback. Recently, major networks like YouTube and X have explored adding dislike or downvote features to help regulate content. “We started thinking about this after hearing about YouTube hiding the dislike count, and Twitter (now X) and TikTok testing downvote-style features,” said Jessica Fong, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business who is transitioning to the University of Maryland College Park. …

Scientists solve the 30-year mystery of ‘clockwork’ earthquakes

Scientists solve the 30-year mystery of ‘clockwork’ earthquakes

Published by Jenni Sidey

Deep beneath the Pacific, one undersea fault has produced nearly identical magnitude 6 earthquakes every few years for decades. Researchers now think strange, water-soaked barrier zones inside the fault act like natural brakes, stopping ruptures in place and raising bigger questions worldwide. A fault line deep under the eastern Pacific has been doing something earthquakes rarely do: repeating itself. About 1,000 miles west of Ecuador, the Gofar transform fault has produced magnitude 6 earthquakes every five to six years, again and again, on nearly the same patches of seafloor. The shocks tend to start in familiar places, reach familiar sizes, and then stop in familiar places. For earthquake scientists, that kind of regularity is almost unsettling. Now a study in Science argues that the answer lies in stretches of the fault once treated as quiet gaps. These zones, lodged between the patches that repeatedly rupture, appear to act as durable barriers that keep earthquakes from growing larger. “We’ve known these barriers existed for a long time, but the question has always been, what are they …

How Singapore scientists are nurturing a climate-friendly rice revolution with some regional farmers

How Singapore scientists are nurturing a climate-friendly rice revolution with some regional farmers

Published by Sam Flores

DECARBONISING ALL FOOD Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA), an initiative by Temasek Trust and one of the Decarbonising Rice Project’s backers, hopes to see such low-emission rice widely accepted by the community. “We want to make sure that the climate-friendly rice, (which is) less deleterious to the environment, will eventually be actually bought in supermarkets,” said PAA’s CEO Shaun Seow. Rize is also registering with the Indonesian national registry network platform for carbon offset credits, said Dr Sheetal, which should go a long way towards further boosting farmers’ income. “Once that is done, we aim to share around 70 per cent of the revenue that we make from the credits with the farmers.” TLL’s CEO Mr Chia attributed the successes of the Decarbonising Rice Project so far to the scientists’ painstaking research work, a network of partners pitching in to work  on “hard problems” together and a common vision that the long-term benefits “should accrue back to the people”. He also sees scope for extending this beyond rice growing to other crops and aquaculture. On the …

Scientists Detect Huge Structure Under Ocean Fueling the Deadly Upcoming El Niño

Scientists Detect Huge Structure Under Ocean Fueling the Deadly Upcoming El Niño

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Scientists say they’ve pinpointed the super-warm undersea structure responsible for this year’s El Niño weather pattern, which they fear will be one of the worst warming events in recorded history. Called a Kelvin wave, scientists have identified a massive pool of warm water in the Pacific carrying temperatures up to 13.5 degrees Fahrenheit above average in similar parts of the ocean. As the Wall Street Journal notes, that’s a major heat wave as far as the ocean is concerned, as deep water temperature patterns take much longer to shift than they would on land. Kelvin waves are fueled by abrupt changes in wind force, such as the westerly bursts that push the superheated waters from the west Pacific to the east. That shift in wind forces a blob of warm water to stretch much farther into the Pacific than it might otherwise, creating the El Niño conditions that roil weather patterns around the world. That said, the magnitude …