Science

A team of physicists from New York University, Wayne State University and the University at Buffalo has found experimental evidence for a transition between trivial and topological superconductivity in a quantum mechanical device called a Josephson junction. This breakthrough offers promise for increasing storage capabilities in electronic devices and enhancing …

  A supernova is, by definition, a huge event. We’re talking about exploding stars, after all. Still, some supernovae are bigger than others, and astronomers recently identified what appears to be the largest supernova we’ve ever observed. The event, dubbed SN2016iet, included a long duration, unusual chemical signatures, and more …

Ever wonder why bugs run like their very lives depend on it when you discover their secret lair? Maybe it’s because more times than not, we go full Godzilla on them. Who wants to stick around to get stomped in the most gruesome way possible? Humans often shriek and make …

  A novel sensor designed by MIT researchers could dramatically accelerate the process of diagnosing sepsis, a leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals that kills nearly 250,000 patients annually. Sepsis occurs when the body’s immune response to infection triggers an inflammation chain reaction throughout the body, causing high heart …

July 18, 2019 6 min read How’s this for mad science: Within the next 15 years, people could elect to have their brains “zapped” to boost creativity in the workplace or classroom. The process — based on functional MRI studies — is headed up by Adam Green, director of the …

Quantum computers will never fully replace “classical” ones like the device you’re reading this article on. They won’t run web browsers, help with your taxes, or stream the latest video from Netflix. What they will do — what’s long been hoped for, at least — will be to offer a …

HBR Staff/Yagi Studio/Getty Images An athletic mediocrity by most Major League measures, Trevor Bauer became a $13 million-a-year All-Star pitcher thanks to his singular talent: a relentless, data-driven focus on self-improvement. “I wasn’t a natural born athlete,” Bauer told a Sports Illustrated reporter in August 2011. “I’m not that strong. …

A team of researchers at the at the University of Leeds, UK, has created gold nanosheets with a thickness of only 0.47 nm (two atomic layers thick) — the thinnest unsupported gold ever created. This 2D material could have wide-scale applications in the medical device and electronics industries, and also …

Paleontologists have discovered a 360-million-year-old (Devonian period) fossilized forest of lycopsid trees near Xinhang in China’s Anhui province — the oldest known fossil forest in Asia. Reconstruction of the Xinhang forest landscape. Image credit: Wang et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.053. The Xinhang forest covered an area of at least 62 acres …

  You don’t usually think of a supermassive black hole as something that can go unnoticed, but many of these interstellar monsters are quite placid. For instance, Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A Star”) in the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. It’s usually very dim, but astronomers recently saw …