Mathematics

Mathematical framework maps landscape of student knowledge via short quizzes

When we learn something new, that information does not exist in isolation. It integrates into the complex landscape of our knowledge, forging connections with existing ideas and opening up possibilities for new learning. ...

Evolution

Stolen chloroplasts maintained by host-made proteins offer clues to plant cell origins

Every plant cell is the product of a biological merger billions of years ago. Chloroplasts are key structures in plants and algae that capture sunlight, but originally they were free-living bacteria that took up residence ...

Quantum computers could have a fundamental limit after all

The performance of quantum computers could cap out after around 1,000 qubits, according to a new analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Through new calculations, Tim Palmer at the University ...

How soil microbes may control the future of our planet

The soil beneath our feet is a huge carbon bank storing up to approximately three times more carbon than the entire atmosphere. That makes it a significant player in the future of our climate. If even a small fraction of ...

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Tech Xplore

Why a canceled meeting feels so liberating

Unless your employer is Lumon Industries, where the "Severance" workday never ends, a canceled meeting can feel like a gift of limitless time. A Rutgers University study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer ...

The cactus on your desk is an evolution speed machine

The cactus on your windowsill may grow slowly, but new research shows that cacti are surprisingly fast at creating new species. Biologists have long thought that pollinators and specialized flowers drive the formation of ...

From dust to planets: Parabolic flight reveal a turbulent path

How does fine dust aggregate into building blocks that ultimately form entire planets like our Earth? A research team led by the University of Bern, with the participation of ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the National ...

The stars that lit up the early Milky Way

Imagine trying to reconstruct the history of a city by studying only its oldest surviving buildings. You can't watch it being built, you can't interview the architects, all you have are the structures themselves, their materials, ...

Why a Swiss population cap baffles experts

That Switzerland is considering tightening its immigration policy was no surprise to demographic and economic experts. After all, that's the trend among European countries, both within and outside the European Union.

Current climate pledges may miss Paris targets

International efforts to tackle climate change reached a major milestone with the Paris Agreement, adopted by more than 190 countries. The agreement aims to limit the average global temperature rise to well below 2 °C, preferably ...

How long do civilizations last?

It is one of the most famous questions in science, and it was asked, as legend has it, over lunch. Enrico Fermi, the physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and whose name graces a unit of length so small it ...

Would Earth still be habitable without us?

Here's a thought experiment that keeps planetary scientists awake at night. Strip every living thing from our planet, every bacterium, every blade of grass, every creature that has ever drawn breath and ask a simple but profound ...

A 'Cosmic Positioning System' in the outer solar system

There have been plenty of attempts to resolve the "Hubble Tension" in cosmology. This feature describes how one of the most important variables in cosmology, the expansion of the universe, takes on different values depending ...