Using a small quantum system consisting of three superconducting qubits, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Google have uncovered a link between aspects of classical and quantum physics thought to be unrelated: classical chaos and quantum entanglement. Their findings suggest that it would be possible to use controllable quantum systems to investigate certain fundamental aspects Read more about Researchers blur the line between classical and quantum physics by connecting chaos and entanglement[…]

Dror and Hampikian gave the DNA evidence to 17 lab technicians for examination, withholding context about the case to ensure unbiased results. All of the techs were experienced, with an average of nine years in the field. Dror and Hampikian asked them to determine whether the mixture included DNA from the defendant. In 2011, the Read more about Evidence mounting that DNA matching is more of an art than a science due partly to proprietary algorhythms[…]

An exclusive look at data from the controversial web site Sci-Hub reveals that the whole world, both poor and rich, is reading pirated research papers. Source: Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone

It turns out to be two factors: 1. Polar ice is melting. 2. We are storing water in different places and moving it around the planet using piping. These factors redistribute the weight of the water around the planet, making the poles wander around. We analyze space geodetic and satellite gravimetric data for the period Read more about Why are our planets’ poles moving? Water.[…]

So just what has got mathematicians spooked? Apart from 2 and 5, all prime numbers end in 1, 3, 7 or 9 – they have to, else they would be divisible by 2 or 5 – and each of the four endings is equally likely. But while searching through the primes, the pair noticed that Read more about Mathematicians shocked to find pattern in ‘random’ prime numbers[…]

The CRAYFIS project is a novel approach to observing cosmic ray particles at the highest energies.It uses the world-wide array of existing smartphones instead of building an expensive dedicated detector. Modern smartphones contain high-resolution cameras with digital sensors which are sensitive to the particles in a cosmic ray shower. They know where they are (GPS) Read more about Crayfis: The app that turns your phone into a cosmic ray detector.[…]

Using a combination of ultrafast chemical fixation and cryogenic storage, it is the first demonstration that near­ perfect, long­-term structural preservation of an intact mammalian brain is achievable. Source: The Brain Preservation Foundation – Small Mammal BPF Prize Winning Announcement Renewal of cryogenics?

We show that quantum mechanics violates one of the fundamental principles of nature: If you put three particles in two boxes, necessarily two particles will end up in the same box. We find instances when three quantum particles are put in two boxes, yet no two particles are in the same box, a seemingly impossible Read more about Quantum mechanics: Put three pigeons in two holes and none of them will be in the same hole.[…]

Source: Search Results – Springer An awesome list of science books

There are at least 12 kinds of rainbows, a new study reveals, and some skip a color or two. Since the 1950s, rainbow classification has been based on the size of the raindrops that create them. The bigger the drops, the more vivid the colors. Another attempt organized them by the height of the sun Read more about Some Rainbows Don’t Have Every Color of the Rainbow: there are 12 types[…]

The plan is to implant up to 11 small tiles, each loaded with 43 electrodes, into areas of the brain that deal with vision. When these areas are stimulated, people report seeing flashes of light. Lowery believes that each electrode could create a dot of light that is similar to seeing one pixel. In total, Read more about Bionic eye will send images direct to the brain to restore sight via 500 pixel “display”[…]

The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory has technology advanced enough to replicate humans, he told AFP, and is only holding off for fear of the public reaction. Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, where it is due to go into production Read more about China ‘clone factory’ scientist eyes human replication[…]

Turns out that companies have been writing information that makes US citizens not believe in climate change science. “The comprehensive data include all individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement (164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal texts produced by this network between 1993–2013 (40,785 texts, more than 39 million words). Read more about Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change[…]

As described in a paper posted online and submitted to Physical Review Letters (PRL), researchers from NIST and several other institutions created pairs of identical light particles, or photons, and sent them to two different locations to be measured. Researchers showed the measured results not only were correlated, but also—by eliminating all other known options—that Read more about NIST team proves ‘spooky action at a distance’ is really real[…]

The most surprising finding? “Our e-skin picked up sound better than the mic on a smartphone.” Ko says that exactly how the pressure, texture, temperature, and acoustic signals will be transmitted into the brain is his next challenge. Source: New artificial fingerprints feel texture, hear sound

The researchers observed the atoms under a microscope by illuminating them with a separate imaging laser. A light microscope can’t see individual atoms, but the imaging laser causes them to fluoresce, and the microscope captured the flashes of light. When the imaging laser was off, or turned on only dimly, the atoms tunneled freely. But Read more about ‘Zeno effect’ verified, Heisenberg uncertainty principle controlled: Atoms won’t move while you watch[…]

Yet again a major study looks at reproducing results (in this case only in psychological studies) and finds that the strength of the results is much lower than published. Expect this to happen for economics, political science, etc as well. Reproducibility is a defining feature of science, but the extent to which it characterizes current Read more about Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science – not doing too well…[…]

Scientists Have Made a Möbius Strip Out of Light for the First Time.

Scientists have discovered an antibiotic capable of fighting infections that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, a breakthrough that could lead to the field’s first major new drug in more than a quarter-century.The experimental drug, which was isolated from a sample of New England dirt, is called teixobactin. It hasn’t yet been tested Read more about Antibiotic Pulled From Dirt Ends 25-Year Drug Drought – Bloomberg[…]

Scientists at the University of B.C. searching for ways to slow the deterioration of blood vessels may have stumbled on to the key to youthful skin. While exploring the effects of the protein-degrading enzyme Granzyme B on blood vessels during heart attacks, professor David Granville couldn’t help noticing that mice engineered to lack the enzyme Read more about Rresearchers may have stumbled upon the secret to youthful skin[…]

Users of Watson Analytics feed in their own raw data, say, in the form of a spreadsheet, which the service then crunches with its own statistical analysis to highlight associations between different variables. It saves execs from needing to know how to write their own scripts or understand statistics in order to derive meaning from Read more about IBM’s Watson Analytics enters public beta | ZDNet[…]