Uncategorized
- Math
Sculpting with a Twist
There’s more than one way to slice a bagel. A bagel (or a doughnut) can serve as a physical model for a mathematical surface called a torus. You can slice it horizontally (or longitudinally) so that you end up with two halves, each containing a hole. That’s great for making sandwiches because the cut exposes […]
- Health & Medicine
Inflammatory Fat
Immune system cells may underlie much of the disease-provoking injury in obese individuals that has been linked to their excess fat.
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The genetic link from obesity to macrophage production to inflammation to diseases in this article seems convincing. On an ecological scale, inflammation is an acute response to environmental insult, while fat is a chronic response, through its role in sequestering toxins. Perhaps the new research reveals a genetic program to arm the body’s defenses both […]
- Computing
Straining for Speed
Hitting fundamental limits on how small they can make certain structures within semiconductor transistors, chip makers are deforming the silicon crystals from which those transistors are made to eke out some extra speed.
- Astronomy
Finding the star that was
Sifting through archival images, astronomers have identified the star whose explosive demise was recorded by telescopes last year.
- Chemistry
Radical molecule could produce plastic magnets
A team of chemists has synthesized an unusual organic molecule that could lead to cheaper and lighter magnets.
- Physics
Nuclear pudding—to go
Moving at nearly the speed of light, atomic nuclei hurtling through a huge particle collider may become mostly dense, flattened puddings of nuclear particles known as gluons.
- Health & Medicine
Putting the brakes on toxic shock
Scientists have discovered the cascade of molecular events that underpins many cases of toxic shock syndrome.
- Physics
New supergas debuts
A cloud of ultracold potassium atoms, manipulated by means of a magnetic field, has coalesced into a new super form of matter called a fermionic condensate.
- Health & Medicine
Some T cells may be a fetus’ best friend
While pregnant, mice overproduce a kind of T cell that reins in other immune cells that might target the fetus.
- Planetary Science
A view of Mars, European style
Although the Mars lander Beagle 2 is presumed dead, its mother craft, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, has transmitted its first data from a polar orbit about the Red Planet.
- Math
Computing on a Cellular Scale
The behavior of leaf pores resembles that of mathematical systems known as cellular automata.
