Science X Dialog
Dialog / Periodic table: Scientists propose new way of ordering the elements
The periodic table of the elements, principally created by the Russian chemist, Dmitry Mendeleev (1834-1907), celebrated its 150th anniversary last year. It would be hard to overstate its importance as an organising principle ...
Dialog / Ancient Earth had a thick, toxic atmosphere like Venus—until it cooled off and became liveable
Earth is the only planet we know contains life. Is our planet special? Scientists over the years have mulled over what factors are essential for, or beneficial to, life. The answers will help us identify other potentially ...
Dialog / We developed a simple process to recycle urine. Here's how it's done
Every year on November 19, the United Nations celebrates one of public health's greatest inventions – the toilet. Those who are fortunate enough to have access to one spend more than a year of their lives on it, yet millions ...
Dialog / A new way to tackle the neutron lifetime enigma: A superfluid helium-4 scintillation detector
A free neutron outside a nucleus is not stable. It undergoes beta decay at a probability. Over time, the number of free neutrons decreases exponentially at a time constant, which is called the neutron lifetime.
Dialog / For wave-particle duality and entanglement, progress is finally possible if we avoid the customary pitfalls
Photon duality remains a paradox because the photon is regarded as a simple, unitary object in space. Equally bad, massless radiation is interpreted via concepts drawn from mass-based physics.
Dialog / This super rare squid is a deep-sea mystery. We recently spotted not 1, but 5, in the Great Australian Bight
The mysterious bigfin squid has been spotted in Australia's waters for the first time. My colleagues and I from the CSIRO and Museums Victoria detail the encounters in our new research, published today in Public Library of ...
Dialog / Not singing in the rain: How climate change and increasing precipitation put a damper on songbird populations
North American grassland bird populations have decreased over 50% in the past 50 years, more than any other group of birds on the continent. What is driving these steep declines?
Dialog / Exoplanets are still out there—a new model tells astronomers where to look for more using 4 simple variables
Only 12 light years from Earth, Tau Ceti is the closest single star similar to the Sun and an all-time favorite in sci-fi stories. Habitable worlds orbiting Tau Ceti were destinations of fictional starships like "The Expanse"'s ...
Dialog / A way to turn urine into solid fertilizer that could make farming more sustainable
It's likely that most of the food you'll eat today was not farmed sustainably.
Dialog / Traceable microwave sensing reaches unprecedented sensitivities
Microwave sensors detect electromagnetic waves at frequencies starting from ~300 MHz up to the terahertz range. They allow us to survey remote terra incognita and detect faint radiations from distant galaxies in the universe. ...
Dialog / We studied mental toughness in ultra-marathon runners. Mind over matter is real—but won't take you all the way
For most people, running a marathon sounds like a lot of work—and they probably wouldn't even consider completing more than one within 24 hours.
Dialog / War in the time of Neanderthals: How our species battled for supremacy for over 100,000 years
Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis—the Neanderthals. They weren't our ancestors, ...