The Secret of How Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Scientists have come to realize that in the soil and rocks beneath our feet there lies a vast biosphere with …
chemistry
Turtles Carry Signs of Humanity’s Nuclear History in Their Shells
On a spring day in 1978, a fisherman caught a tiger shark in the lagoon surrounding Enewetak Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the north Pacific. That shark, along …
A New Idea for How to Assemble Life
According to assembly theory, before Darwinian evolution can proceed, something has to select for multiple copies of high-AI objects from the Assembly Possible. Chemistry alone, Cronin said, might be capable …
A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. A new measurement of the strong nuclear force, which binds protons and neutrons together, confirms previous hints of an uncomfortable …
LK-99 Is Fueling a DIY Superconductivity Race
All that Andrew McCalip wanted for his 34th birthday was a shipment of red phosphorus. It was a tough request—the substance happens to be an ingredient for cooking meth and …
For the Love of God, Stop Microwaving Plastic
At the start of his third year of graduate school, Kazi Albab Hussain became a father. As a new dad and a PhD student studying environmental nanotechnology, plastic was on …