Quantum computing is still a technology that is slowly advancing in the background, while actual applications have been limited. There is a threshold effect at play – at some point, quantum computers will be powerful and practical enough that there will likely be a rapid adoption at the scientific, governmental, and industrial level (these are not for personal use, at least not anytime soon).
A team of scientists dedicated to pinpointing the primordial origins of metabolism - a set of core chemical reactions that first powered life on Earth - has identified part of a protein that could provide scientists clues to detecting planets on the verge of producing life.
Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there is some controversy over exactly how to categorize complex phenomena, specifically whether or not to favor the fewest categories based on similarities, or the greatest number of categories based on every difference. For example, in medicine we need to divide the world of diseases into specific entities. Some diseases are very specific, but many are highly variable. For the variable diseases do we lump every type into a single disease category, or do we split them into different disease types? Lumping is clean but can gloss-over important details. Splitting endeavors to capture all detail, but can create a categorical mess.
In a new study, University of California, Irvine astronomers describe how extraterrestrial life has the potential to exist on distant exoplanets inside a special area called the "terminator zone," which is a ring on planets that have one side that always faces its star and one side that is always dark.
New form of omega-3 may help prevent visual decline due to Alzheimer's, diabetes
Some of the leading causes of sight loss affect the part of the eye called the retina.
Supplementation with a certain type of omega fatty acid known as docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, can reduce the incidence of retinal disease, however, improving DHA levels in the retina is challenging due to the retina-blood barrier.
A group of researchers has now shown that a different form of DHA they have developed can enter the retinal tissue— at least in mice.
If the same effect is shown in humans, the supplement could be used to reduce risk and potentially even treat some retinal diseases.
Two New Orleans high school students claim to have solved a 2,000-year-old puzzle in mathematics, which scientists are saying should be submitted to peer review.
Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson from St. Mary’s Academy presented their findings to a meeting of the American Mathematics Society in which they explain they were able to prove Pythagoras’ Theorem using trigonometry rather than circular logic.
