Science

For Gaddy, who is African American, the report’s findings confirm what she and her neighbors in Newark’s predominantly Black South Ward have experienced for years. Gaddy and her three children were all diagnosed with asthma; her eldest child died of a heart attack in 2021 at the age of 32. “It’s just the cumulative impacts … Read more

Few things in life are certain. But it seems highly probable that people will explore the lunar surface over the next decade or so, staying there for weeks, perhaps months, at a time. That fact bumps up against something we are certain about. When human beings spend time in low-gravity environments, it takes a toll … Read more

Meet graphene’s newest metallic cousin, goldene. For the first time, researchers have created a free-standing sheet of gold that’s just one atom thick. The development, reported in the April 16 Nature Synthesis, could someday allow scientists to use less gold in electronics and chemical reactions, says materials physicist Lars Hultman of Linköping University in Sweden. … Read more

A precise new dating of archaeological sites in Jerusalem supports some of the key historical events described in the Bible, including the settling of the city, a major earthquake and its eventual destruction by the Babylonians, according to a new study.  The research gives an unprecedented chronology of the ancient city that sheds light on … Read more

Now, Northwestern University researchers have used statistical physics to confirm the theory that underlies this famous axiom. The study will be published on May 3 in the journal Science Advances. In the 1940s, Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider introduced social balance theory, which explains how humans innately strive to find harmony in their social circles. According … Read more

The Unequal Burden of Early Dementia on Black Americans and How We Can Change It Black Americans face higher hurdles in diagnosis and treatment of frontotemporal dementia, the most common form of dementia for people under 60 By Ashley Andreou & Minali Nigam The first time many people likely ever heard of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) … Read more

Pied hoverflies migrate to the UK from mainland Europe Will Leo Hawkes Many species of flies migrate for hundreds or thousands of kilometres, often in vast numbers, a review of the evidence shows. These largely overlooked migrations mean flies may play a key role in many ecosystems, in particular by carrying pollen for much longer … Read more

Melting an ice cube takes 3.34 x 105 joules per kilogram. So a single ice cube with a mass of 50 grams would take 16,700 joules. You can already see that melting stuff takes a bunch of energy. If you want to melt a metal door, you have to do two things—increase the temperature to … Read more

Brain implant technology is rapidly advancing, helping people to find their voice or beat neurological disorders. But what happens when an implant is no longer supported by its producer? Upgrading to a new model when your five-year-old smartphone can no longer support updates is hard enough – it’s another matter entirely when we’re talking about … Read more

The beluga whale wears its heart on its sleeve — or rather, its forehead. Researchers have created a visual encyclopedia of the different expressions that belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) in captivity seem to make with their highly mobile “melon,” a squishy deposit of fat on the forehead that helps direct sound waves for echolocation. Using muscles … Read more