Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding the role of mechanical forces in the development of an entire organism from a single cell. By studying the behavior of fruit fly epithelial tissue, the team has identified a power law that explains why the tissue stretches as…
Science on The Soothsayer / page 25
A recent study has found that married men in the United States are taking on more household chores, with the gap between the time married women and men spent on such tasks shrinking by 40 percent over the last two decades. The study suggests that men are developing new household habits, which have persisted even…
Researchers from the UK, Germany, and the US have developed a quantum-inspired technique to simulate turbulent fluids in just a few hours, a significant improvement over classical algorithms that take several days. This breakthrough could advance our understanding of turbulence, a complex phenomenon found in weather patterns, water flows, and astrophysical phenomena. The new technique…
A team at the Trento Proton Therapy Centre in Italy has successfully delivered the first clinical treatments using proton arc therapy, a new proton delivery technique that overcomes the limitations of traditional pencil-beam scanning. The technique, which involves moving the beam in an arc trajectory, enables the optimization of the number of energies used for…
Astronomers have created the first weather map of the exoplanet WASP-127b, revealing brutal conditions with winds reaching speeds of up to 33,000 km/hr. The map was created by analyzing light transmitted through the planet’s atmosphere during a transit event. The study provides valuable insights into the planet’s atmosphere and wind patterns, which will aid in…
A recent study reveals that despite the massive rainfall in California in 2023, the state’s aquifers have barely been recharged due to decades of drought and human pumping. The research, led by William Ellsworth, used seismic waves to map the water infiltration in the aquifers, showing that only about 25% of the water lost since…
Researchers at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain have developed a “sneeze simulator” that uses a three-dimensional model of the nasal cavity to study how respiratory illnesses spread. The simulator can replicate different sneeze intensities and investigate how the nasal cavity affects aerosol cloud dispersion. This breakthrough could lead to improved predictive models for…
Scientists have discovered that a pure form of cellulose produced by bacteria can act as a plant bandage, significantly boosting healing and regeneration in plants. This breakthrough finding has potential implications for agriculture and plant research, with possible applications in facilitating grafting, preserving cut plant material, or serving as a growth medium in laboratories. Forecast…
Unlocking the Secrets of Static Electricity: A Breakthrough in Understanding Contact Electrification
Physicists in Austria have made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding static electricity, also known as contact electrification or triboelectrification. Led by Juan Carlos Sobarzo and Scott Waitukaitis, the team found that the static electricity acquired by identical material samples can evolve differently over time, based on each sample’s history of contact with other samples. This…
Scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria have made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding the phenomenon of static electricity. By studying the electric charge in experiments with a single material, they found that the charge an object picks up can depend on its history, specifically the number of times it had previously touched…