Category Archives: Science
Cover Preview: Science Magazine – May 20, 2022
Cover Preview: Nature Magazine – May 19, 2022
Nature Magazine, May 19, 2022 – At industrial scales, chemical reactions are typically driven by applying continuous heat to the reactants. In this week’s issue, Liangbing Hu and his colleagues show that pulsed heating and quenching can enhance synthetic performance while also saving energy.
The researchers use a programmable electric current to switch between high and low temperatures very quickly — typically 0.02 seconds on, 1.08 seconds off. Rapidly quenching the reaction gives high selectivity, maintains catalyst stability and reduces energy usage. The cover image illustrates the heater in action for the pyrolysis of methane — the model reaction the team tested. Methane molecules travel through the pores of the high-temperature heater and are selectively converted into useful products.
Previews: New Scientist Magazine – May 21, 2022
COVER STORIES
Science: Galaxies Without Dark Matter, High Helium Levels, Solar Energy Jump
Dark matter makes up most of the matter in the Universe, and is thought to be needed for galaxies to form. But four years ago, astronomers made a perplexing, and controversial discovery: two galaxies seemingly devoid of dark matter.
This week the team suggests that a cosmic collision may explain how these, and a string of other dark-matter-free galaxies, could have formed.
Research article: van Dokkum et al
News and Views: Giant collision created galaxies devoid of dark matter
08:39 Research Highlights
How fossil fuel burning has caused levels of helium to rise, and a high-efficiency, hybrid solar-energy system.
Research Highlight: Helium levels in the atmosphere are ballooning
Research Highlight: Flower power: ‘Sunflower’ system churns out useful energy
10:49 Researchers experiences of the war in Ukraine
We hear the stories of scientists whose lives have been affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including researchers who have become refugees, soldiers and activists in the face of a horrifying conflict.
Nature Feature: How three Ukrainian scientists are surviving Russia’s brutal war
20:46 Imaging the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way
Last week, a team of researchers released an image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive blackhole at the centre of our galaxy. We hear how they took the image and what it is revealing about these enormous objects.
Nature News: Black hole at the centre of our Galaxy imaged for the first time
Previews: Scientific American – June 2022
June 2022 – Volume 326, Issue 6
FEATURES
How the Brain ‘Constructs’ the Outside World
Neural activity probes your physical surroundings to select just the information needed to survive and flourish
By György Buzsáki
U.S. Kids Are Falling behind Global Competition, but Brain Science Shows How to Catch Up
Paid parental leave and high-quality child care improve children’s brain development and prospects for a better future
By Dana Suskind and Lydia Denworth
How Mammals Conquered the World after the Asteroid Apocalypse
They scurried in the shadows of dinosaurs for millions of years until a killer space rock created a new world of evolutionary opportunity
By Steve Brusatte
Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts Are Finally Coming into Focus
Twenty years after their initial detection, enigmatic blasts from the sky are starting to deliver tentative answers, as well as plenty of science
By Adam Mann
Brain Health: The Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting
Although intermittent fasting is most widely known as a weight-loss strategy, emerging research suggests that it could have benefits for brain health and cognition. But does it actually work, are there any drawbacks and how long would you have to fast to see benefits? WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez breaks down what’s known and what’s not about the neuroscience of intermittent fasting.
Timeline: 0:00 Could intermittent fasting help our brains work better and longer? 0:31 How long would you have to fast to see any potential cognitive benefits? 1:04 How intermittent fasting could affect your ability to focus 2:27 Potential mood-related benefits of intermittent fasting 2:48 How intermittent fasting can affect brain health 4:03 Potential drawbacks of intermittent fasting
Cover Preview: Science Magazine – May 13, 2022
A survey of cell types across tissues as part of the Human Cell Atlas, mapped with single-cell transcriptomics in three papers in this issue, lays the foundation for understanding how cellular composition and gene expression vary across the human body in health, and for understanding how genes act in disease.
Nutrigenomics: How Diet Can Reprogram Our DNA
The burgeoning field of “nutrigenomics” claims that the food we eat can alter our genetics. Dietitians, scientists and lifestyle companies have all hopped on the bandwagon.
Nutrigenomics (also known as nutritional genomics) is broadly defined as the relationship between nutrients, diet, and gene expression. The launch of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and the subsequent mapping of human DNA sequencing ushered in the ‘era of big science’, jump-starting the field of nutrigenomics that we know today.
Cover Previews: Nature Magazine – May 12, 2022
Nova explosions occur when a runaway thermonuclear reaction is triggered in a white dwarf that is accreting hydrogen from a companion star. The massive amount of energy released ultimately creates the bright light source that can be seen with a naked eye as a nova. But some of the energy has been predicted to be lost during the initial stages of the reaction as a flash of intense luminosity — a fireball phase — detectable as low-energy X-rays. In this week’s issue, Ole König and his colleagues present observations that corroborate this prediction. Using scans taken by the instrument eROSITA, the researchers identified a short, bright X-ray flash from the nova YZ Reticuli a few hours before it became visible in the optical spectrum. The cover shows an artist’s impression of the nova in the fireball phase.
Boomers Daily 