Science X Dialog

When one mentions "waves," we immediately think of a perturbation that propagates. This applies to waves on the shore, sound waves in the air or electromagnetic waves that we use to transmit information via optical fibers. ...

For decades, neuroscientists have thought about communication between the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia in a fairly linear way. The cortex sends information into the basal ganglia, where that information is processed ...

Every electronic and optoelectronic device generates heat, and today that heat is managed almost entirely from the outside. Heatsinks, fans, cold plates and refrigerators are bulky exterior measures bolted onto a chip or ...

In a billion years, the sun will start to run out of fuel and expand to become a red giant. Earth's oceans and atmosphere will be burned away, and Earth will likely be engulfed by the sun altogether. The sun will then shrink ...

Imagine a typical breakfast: coffee may appear alongside eggs, toast and butter, while fruit, yogurt and whole grains may form another combination. We do not eat foods in isolation. Instead, our diets are made up of interconnected ...

REM sleep is already called "paradoxical sleep." The body is largely still, yet the brain is highly active. In humans, this is also the stage most closely associated with vivid dreaming. Our study, published in Communications ...

When a virus enters a cell, its top priority is to replicate its genome rapidly, creating new viruses to infect elsewhere. The host has the opposite priority: to destroy the virus, ideally before it can do any harm. Biology ...

While headlines warn that AI could unleash future biological threats, the technology also offers our best defense: a way to anticipate viral evolution and stress-test treatments. Rather than waiting for SARS-CoV-2 to mutate ...

Imagine holding one of our most precise quantum devices at a fixed position outside a black hole. A Josephson junction—two superconductors separated by an ultrathin barrier—can turn a voltage into a quantum oscillation with ...

Cisplatin is one of the most successful cancer medicines ever developed. Doctors use it to treat many cancers, including lung, ovarian, breast, testicular and head and neck cancers. However, cisplatin has a serious problem. ...

Have you ever looked at a photograph of a raging wildfire, a flooded neighborhood or a starving polar bear and immediately felt something before you even had time to think? Most of us have.

When I tell people that I am a proud Boarisch-Schwob—Bavarian-Swabian—Indigenous person, I am often met with disbelief. I am white. I am European. I come from Bavaria, one of Europe's wealthiest regions. For some people, ...