15/06/2020

The search for nature in times of crisis and beyond

As a fellow hiker took a picture of the extremely faint Manhattan skyline stretched out beyond an inlet of the Long Island Sound, I thought about how financially privileged we were to be there. I had paid $27 for a round-trip ...

Measuring the spin of a black hole

A black hole, at least in our current understanding, is characterized by having "no hair," that is, it is so simple that it can be completely described by just three parameters, its mass, its spin and its electric charge. ...

Precision genome editing enters the modern era

CRISPR has sparked a renaissance in genome editing. Now, next-generation CRISPR technologies let scientists modify the genome more efficiently and precisely than before. Such tools could one day serve as therapeutics, but ...

Choosing your mother tongue, rather than it choosing you

Young Ukrainian adults are prompting us to rethink what we mean when we talk about people having a 'mother tongue', as many are working to shift the primary language they use from Russian to Ukrainian amid the ongoing Ukrainian–Russian ...

Newly observed phenomenon could lead to new quantum devices

An exotic physical phenomenon known as a Kohn anomaly has been found for the first time in an unexpected type of material by researchers at MIT and elsewhere. They say the finding could provide new insights into certain fundamental ...

How young embryos conduct quality control

The first few days of embryonic development are a critical point for determining the failure or success of a pregnancy. Because relatively few cells make up the embryo during this period, the health of each cell is vital ...

Tiny sand grains trigger massive glacial surges

About 10 percent of the Earth's land mass is covered in glaciers, most of which slip slowly across the land over years, carving fjords and trailing rivers in their wake. But about 1 percent of glaciers can suddenly surge, ...

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