Category: Life
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Different… To infinity and beyond…
Scientists discovered how a set of high frequency brain waves may help us unconsciously know when something's different by comparing memories of the past with present experiences. (1) A. B. C. D. What is one? How can we go to two? A whole cosmos filled with symbols. Symbols symbolizing nothing but the one thing they…
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One… Two… Many…
Phase transitions describe dramatic changes in properties of a macroscopic system - like the transition from a liquid to a gas. Starting from individual ultracold atoms, physicists were able to observe the emergence of such a transition with an increasing number of particles. (1) One. Two. Three. Many. The whole cosmos can be explained by…
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Sensitive touch…
To develop a more human-like robotic gripper, it is necessary to provide sensing capabilities to the fingers. However, conventional sensors compromise the mechanical properties of soft robots. Now, scientists have designed a 3D printable soft robotic finger containing a built-in sensor with adjustable stiffness. Their work represents a big step toward safer and more dexterous…
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Sandcastles…
New research provides a solution for the century-and-half-old puzzle of why capillary condensation, a fundamentally microscopic phenomenon involving a few molecular layers of water, can be described reasonably well using macroscopic equations and macroscopic characteristics of bulk water. Is it a coincidence or a hidden law of nature? (1) Look at those children play. Building…
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Real. Possible. Stupid. God.
Our brains respond to language expressing facts differently than they do to words conveying possibility, a team of neuroscientists has found. Its work offers new insights into the impact word choice has on how we make distinctions between what's real vs. what's merely possible. (1) But what is a ‘fact’? What do we know for…
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