» ŞTIINŢĂ ŞI TEHNOLOGIE:
1. 10 most intriguing inventions of 2018 [en]
[From programmable pills to power-generating boots, here are some of the most unusual technological innovations of this year.]
2. What's coming in smartphones in 2019? [en]
[From the launch of 5G to phones with large folding screens, more cameras and fingerprint scanners under the screens, 2019 looks set to transform the smartphone in more ways than one.]
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
ŞTIINŢĂ ŞI TEHNOLOGIE
1. A single personality trait is the foundation for almost all mental illness [en]
[Neuroticism seems to be the personality trait that best describes the risk of all mental disorders.]
2. The famous Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham [en]
[The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do.]
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
David Prologo, Emory University
Many of us may be considering “burning some fat” so we feel better in our bathing suits out on the beach or at the pool. What does that actually mean, though?
The normal fat cell exists primarily to store energy. The body will expand the number of fat cells and the size of fat cells to accommodate excess energy from high-calorie foods. It will even go so far as to start depositing fat cells on our muscles, liver and other organs to create space to store all this extra energy from calorie-rich diets – especially when combined with a low activity lifestyle.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
Publicam acest prim articol dedicat primei lansări a Falcon Heavy, la câteva zile de la acest eveniment (Falcon Heavy a fost lansată pe 6 februarie a.c.), încercând să depăşim euforia de moment ce a fost trăită la nivel planetar şi să vedem, la rece, ce înseamnă acest zbor pentru industria spaţială. Nu este un articol uşor, de genul celor cu care presa v-a obișnuit, dimpotrivă, însă credem că aduce o perspectivă ce merită luată în considerare.
- Detalii
- Scris de: SpaceAlliance
Cameron Webb, University of Sydney and Bryan Lessard, CSIRO
Summer in Australia is defined by sport, but the most-played sport isn’t cricket or tennis – it’s fly swatting. Have you ever tried to swat a fly? You can swipe, slap, slash or swoosh your hands at these sometimes-annoying backyard pests and almost always miss.
Fly swatting is as challenging a sport you’ll face this summer, but why is it so hard to squish these little beasts?
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
By Chelsea Gohd
In Brief
After showing remarkable results in animal models, a new localized immunotherapy that targets the tumor with a simple injection is ready to enter clinical trials.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
by Elise Crull
In the summer of 1935, the physicists Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger engaged in a rich, multifaceted and sometimes fretful correspondence about the implications of the new theory of quantum mechanics. The focus of their worry was what Schrödinger later dubbed entanglement: the inability to describe two quantum systems or particles independently, after they have interacted.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
Două maimuţe au păşit pe urmele oii Dolly, clonate în 1996, şi au devenit primele primate care au fost clonate în urma transferului de ADN. Cele două exemplare identice de macac cu coadă lungă, Zhong Zhong şi Hua Hua, s-au născut în urmă cu opt săptămâni, respectiv şase săptămâni într-un laborator din China. Succesul cercetătorilor chinez marchează un moment semnificativ în cercetarea privind clonarea. Studiul privind clonarea maimuțelor a fost publicat în revista Cell.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
În imagine: nori groşi de praf ce blochează observarea Căii Lactee. Credit: NASA
Proiectul de cercetare "Dark Energy Survey" a descoperit recent 11 "curenţi stelari" în Calea Lactee. Curenţii stelari (eng. stellar streams) sunt grupări de stele aparţinând în trecut unor alte galaxii sau unor clustere de stele din apropierea galaxiei noastre. Găsirea și înțelegerea acestor curenţi stelari ne-ar putea ajuta să înțelegem mai bine originile Căii Lactee și distribuția materiei întunecate.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
Donia Baklouti, Université Paris Sud – Université Paris-Saclay; Anaïs Bardyn, Carnegie Science, and Hervé Cottin, Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC)
We are not used to considering dust as a valuable material – unless it comes from space. And more precisely, from the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. An analysis of its dust has provided valuable information about this celestial object, and, more generally, on the history of the Solar System.
Using the COSIMA instrument aboard the European space probe Rosetta, a scientific team scrutinised the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) in great detail from August 2014 to September 2016. They were interested in the dust particles ejected from the comet’s nucleus and captured by the spacecraft, and COSIMA made it possible to study their composition. The results of their research were published in December 2017 by the Royal Astronomical Society.
The study indicates that, on average, half of the mass of each dust particle consists of carbonaceous material with a mainly macromolecular organic structure; the other half being mostly composed of non-hydrated silicate minerals.
How is this result important or interesting? What does it imply? Was it expected by scientists or is it a total break pre-existing theories?
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
By Linda Geddes
Using sleep deprivation to lift people out of severe depression may seem counterintuitive, but for some people, it’s the only thing that works. Linda Geddes reports.
The first sign that something is happening is Angelina’s hands. As she chats to the nurse in Italian, she begins to gesticulate, jabbing, moulding and circling the air with her fingers. As the minutes pass and Angelina becomes increasingly animated, I notice a musicality to her voice that I’m sure wasn’t there earlier. The lines in her forehead seem to be softening, and the pursing and stretching of her lips and the crinkling of her eyes tell me as much about her mental state as any interpreter could.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
George Hobbs, CSIRO; Dick Manchester, CSIRO, and Simon Johnston, CSIRO
A pulsar is a small, spinning star – a giant ball of neutrons, left behind after a normal star has died in a fiery explosion.
With a diameter of only 30 km, the star spins up to hundreds of times a second, while sending out a beam of radio waves (and sometimes other radiation, such as X-rays). When the beam is pointed in our direction and into our telescopes, we see a pulse.
2017 marks 50 years since pulsars were discovered. In that time, we have found more than 2,600 pulsars (mostly in the Milky Way), and used them to hunt for low-frequency gravitational waves, to determine the structure of our galaxy and to test the general theory of relativity.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
For a number of years in the 1980s, applicants to St George’s Hospital Medical School in London were selected with a high-tech method. A computer program, one of the first of its kind, took the first look at their résumés, carrying out the initial selection of about 2,000 candidates every year. The program analyzed the admissions records to learn the characteristics of successful applications, and was adjusted until its decisions matched those of the admissions team.
But the program had learned to look for more than good grades and signs of academic prowess. Four years after the program was implemented, two doctors at the hospital discovered the program tended to reject female applicants and those with non-European-sounding names, regardless of their academic merit. As many as 60 applicants each year could have been refused an interview simply because of their gender or race, the doctors found. The program had incorporated the gender and racial biases in the data used to train it — it was essentially taught that women and foreigners were not doctor material.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
Nial Wheate, University of Sydney
Every day, more than 10 million people take a flight somewhere in the world. While flying is relatively safe, the unique environmental conditions can put passengers at risk if they’re taking certain medications.
These include any hormone-based drugs, like the contraceptive pill and some fertility medicines, and drugs used to prevent heart attack and stroke. Antihistamines should also not be used to help passengers sleep during a flight.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.
Leah Dowling, Swinburne University of Technology
Wholemeal, wholegrain, multigrain, sourdough, rye, white, high fibre white, low GI, low FODMAP, gluten free. With so many choices of bread available, how are we to know which is best for our health?
Bread has always been a dietary staple in Australian households. It’s a good source of carbohydrate, it’s low in fat, and wholegrain varieties are a good source of protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals, as well as healthy fats.
Wholegrains are high in dietary fibre, which helps keep us feeling full. Diets high in wholegrains are linked to a reduced risk of health conditions such as excess weight and obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. Dietary fibre is also beneficial for bowel health by preventing constipation and feeding the “good” gut bacteria which is likely to result in a number of health benefits. A recent study found a diet high in wholegrains was associated with a lower risk of bowel cancer.
- Detalii
- Scris de: Iosif A.