Article archive

Earth's first life may have sprung up in ice

02/11/2013 07:18
by Linda Geddes IF YOU thought life evolved in bubbling hot springs, think again. Pieces of RNA have been made that can copy RNA strands longer than themselves, supporting the idea that the first life was based on self-replicating RNA, not DNA. What's more, they work best in the cold, hinting that...

Physics Nobel winner: We discovered a cosmic mystery

02/11/2013 07:14
by Anil Ananthaswamy Adam Riess has won the 2011 Nobel prize in physics for the discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up, along with Brian Schmidt and Saul Perlmutter. Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Riess now works at Johns Hopkins...

Dark energy could be the offspring of the Higgs boson

02/11/2013 05:53
by Lisa Grossman The particle credited with giving others mass, the Higgs boson, may also be to blame for the universe flying apart ever faster. That's because the Higgs boson could, in principle, be giving rise to dark energy. [Read more] ...  

Dark matter tops physicists' wish list, post-Higgs

02/11/2013 05:51
by Jacob Aron Higgs is so yesterday – dark matter is the new black. A new survey of about 50 particle theorists reveals mixed feelings about whether the long-sought Higgs boson will ever point the way to new theories, but renewed optimism that the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the...

What has the Higgs boson done for us?

02/11/2013 05:46
by Marcus Chown IN 2012 American Independence Day was a high-water mark for European science: it saw the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, Switzerland. [Read more] ...  

Elusive Higgs wins physics Nobel, shared with Englert

01/11/2013 07:18
by Jacob Aron When you have waited nearly 50 years, what's another hour? As New Scientist and many others predicted, Peter Higgs of the University of Edinburgh, UK, and François Englert of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, have won this year's Nobel prize in physics for developing the...

Quantum question

01/11/2013 07:13
Where does the energy come from to keep electrons moving around the nucleus of an atom? We live in a universe awash with energy in various forms – kinetic, potential, mass and so on. It keeps stars glowing, plants growing, molecules bouncing and everything happening. For all we know it came from...

Entangled toy universe shows time may be an illusion

01/11/2013 05:41
by Jacob Aron Time is an illusion – at least in a toy model of the universe made of two particles of light. The experiment shows that what we perceive as the passage of time might emerge from the strange property of quantum entanglement. The finding could assist in solving the long-standing problem...

Witches, Women, and Witchcraft: History and Background

01/11/2013 05:36
By Austin Cline Witches have long been feared and hated in Christian circles. Even today, pagans and Wiccans remain a target of Christian persecution — especially in America. It seems that they long ago took on an identity which reached far beyond their own existence and became a symbol for...

Should Catholics Celebrate Halloween?

01/11/2013 05:34
By Scott P. Richert Every year, a debate rages among Catholics and other Christians: Is Halloween a satanic holiday or merely a secular one? Should Catholic children dress up like ghosts and goblins? Is it good for children to be scared? Lost in the debate is the history of Halloween, which, far...
Items: 811 - 820 of 1634
<< 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 >>