Tag: science
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Playing itself…
Scientists have created a nano-electronic circuit which vibrates without any external force. Just as a guitar string vibrates when plucked, the wire — 100,000 times thinner than a guitar string — vibrates when forced into motion by an oscillating voltage. The surprise came when they repeated the experiment without the forcing voltage. Under the right […]
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Chaos. Numbers. Simulations.
Digital computers use numbers based on flawed representations of real numbers, which may lead to inaccuracies when simulating the motion of molecules, weather systems and fluids, find scientists. The study, published today in Advanced Theory and Simulations, shows that digital computers cannot reliably reproduce the behaviour of ‘chaotic systems’ which are widespread. This fundamental limitation […]
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Statistical significance. Not so… significant!
In science, the success of an experiment is often determined by a measure called “statistical significance.” A result is considered to be “significant” if the difference observed in the experiment between groups (of people, plants, etc) would be very unlikely if no difference actually exists. The common cutoff for “very unlikely” is that you’d see […]
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Citizens’ science… Nothing to do with science…
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have helped to overturn almost a century of galaxy classification, in a new study using data from the longstanding Galaxy Zoo project. The new investigation uses classifications of over 6000 galaxies to reveal that ‘well known’ correlations between different features are not found in this large and complete sample. (1) […]
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Non-water. Inside the dead forest.
Led by Professors Raffaele Mezzenga and Ehud Landau, a group of physicists and chemists from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich have identified an unusual way to prevent water from forming ice crystals, so even at extreme sub-zero temperatures it retains the amorphous characteristics of a liquid. In a first step, the researchers designed and […]
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