Researchers from Osaka University and Osaka City University synthesize and crystallize a molecule that is otherwise too unstable to fully study in the laboratory, and is a model of a revolutionary class of magnets. Since the first reported production in 2004, researchers have been hard at work using graphene and similar carbon-based materials to revolutionize … Read more
Not CNRS January 27, 2022 Laboratory reproduction of the Zen stone phenomenon in a lyophilizer. Credit: © Nicolas Taberlet / Nicolas Plihon Like artwork embedded in a museum, some stones finish on a pedestal of ice in nature, without any human intervention. This “Zen stone” phenomenon, named after the stones stacked in Japanese gardens, appears … Read more
We may finally have the explanation for mysterious shadows of falling material in the atmosphere of the Sun, observed during solar flares. First spotted in 1999, these mysterious streaks of shadow – referred to as “downward-traveling dark voids” – were thought related to the magnetic field interactions that triggered solar eruptions. Now, solar physicists have … Read more
You might think that clouds are clouds all over Earth, but that’s not true. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, the clouds there are different, more abundant, and more reflective than the clouds found in the Northern Hemisphere, a fact that scientists are very familiar with, but haven’t been able to explain fully. Now, new … Read more
A six-year inquest is finally complete! Nearly every known sauropod neck is incomplete and distorted January 24, 2022 Today a paper is finally being published (Taylor 2022) that has been longer in pregnancy than most (though, yes, okay, not as long as the Archbishop). The first seeds were probably sown almost a full decade ago … Read more
The Solar System floats in the middle of an amazing empty area. This region of low-density, high-temperature plasma, about 1,000 light years across, is surrounded by a cooler, denser, dust-neutral shell of gas. It’s called the Local Bubble, and exactly how and why it came into being, with the Solar System floating in the middle, … Read more
A team of Université Laval scientists may have discovered why severe depression affects women and men differently, according to a study published on January 10, 2022, in Communicating Nature. The researchers examined the brains of people with depression at the time of death and found changes located in different parts of the brain for each … Read more