Satellite images reveal where forest-dependent people live inside the forests of the South American Gran Chaco, and how deforestation for cattle ranching leads to an erosion of their resource base. (Background photo: Google EarthTM / Inset photo: I. Gasparri). Forest-dependent people living across the Gran Chaco have been put on the map for the first time. […]

This past year, a new two-story building took shape in the northeast corner of the Caltech campus. Though modest in design, what takes place inside the structure could transform the future of computing. The building is the AWS Center for Quantum Computing, the result of a partnership between Caltech and Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing […]

Despite the rain that drenched central and northern California recently, drought still casts a long shadow over the state. The consequences of a multi-year water shortage are dire: reservoirs that serve millions of people and massive swaths of farmland are disappearing, hydroelectric dams are in danger of losing power and wild salmon are facing mass […]

A new member has joined the family of mechanically interlocked molecules. Its discoverers dubbed them clippanes since their chemical structure resembles that of two intertwined Keck clips. According to the definition proposed by 2016 chemistry Nobel laureate Fraser Stoddart, mechanically interlocked molecules consist of two or more separate components that can only be untangled by breaking […]

In a recent blog post about the Minim friar, Marin Mersenne (1588–1648), I mentioned that when Mersenne arrived in Paris in 1619 he was introduced to the intellectual elite of the city by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637). In another recent post on the Republic of Letters I also mentioned that Peiresc was probably, the periods […]

2D materials have been grown inside living cells that would be impossible to get cells to take up any other way. The approach could be useful for bioimaging, diagnostic and therapeutic platforms.

Fast fashion, which encourages clothing to be quickly discarded and replaced, uses significant amounts of natural, social, and creative resources and creates excessive waste. Research into sustainable fashion aims to change this. Employing more than 300 million people and producing 100 billion items every year, the fashion industry has a colossal impact on the environment. Driving this […]

Using specialized carbon nanotubes, MIT engineers have designed a novel sensor that can detect SARS-CoV-2 without any antibodies, giving a result within minutes. Their new sensor is based on technology that can quickly generate rapid and accurate diagnostics, not just for Covid-19 but for future pandemics, the researchers say. “A rapid test means that you […]

Good sleep can be hard to come by. But a new study finds that if you can make up for lost sleep, even for just a few weekend hours, the extra zzz’s could help reduce fatigue-induced clumsiness, at least in how you walk. There’s plenty of evidence to show sleep, and how much we get […]

Mixing metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with ionic liquids makes for meltable porous materials, researchers have discovered. Such MOF glasses could find applications in gas separation and water treatment. ‘These hybrid materials combine the adsorbing properties of powdered MOFs and the processability of glass,’ explains Lothar Wondraczek from the University of Jena, Germany, who led the study […]