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Future Circular Collider: A Physicist's Dream

November 8, 2024

Imagine a new, even more powerful particle collider than the one that found the famous Higgs boson! That's what Mark Thomson, the next director-general of CERN, has in mind. He believes the Future Circular Collider (FCC) is the way to go for science. This isn't just any collider; it's a 91-kilometer

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How Often Do Psychiatry Researchers Involve People With Lived Experience?

November 7, 2024

Researchers decided to take a look at studies published in some of the most important psychiatry journals. They wanted to know two things: how many of these studies mentioned involving people with personal experiences of mental health issues, and how many actually did it. If involvement happened, th

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How Habitat Changes Impact Tick Diseases

November 7, 2024

Ticks, tiny bugs that spread diseases, depend a lot on their environment. Scientists have been wondering how habitats being split up or connected could affect these critters. They focused on the West Coast, where a certain tick, Ixodes pacificus , is quite common. This tick carries several bacter

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Julian Schwinger's Legacy at Harvard: A Celebration of Scientific Genius

November 7, 2024

February 12, 2018, marked a special day at Harvard University as it celebrated the 100th birthday of the renowned physicist Julian Schwinger. This was not just a birthday commemoration but a grand event titled "The Memories of Julian. " The university wanted to honor Schwinger's incredible contribut

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Prime Numbers: How They're Spread Out

November 7, 2024

Ever wondered how prime numbers—those numbers that only have two divisors, 1 and themselves—are scattered across the number line? This isn't just about counting them, but understanding how they appear. Picture a long road filled with numbers, and prime numbers are like the unique trees along this ro

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The Matter-Antimatter Puzzle: A Tale of CP Violation

November 7, 2024

Have you ever pondered why the universe is filled with matter instead of antimatter? The answer might be hiding in the intriguing world of particle physics, specifically in a phenomenon called CP violation. CP violation is a fascinating concept that describes the slight differences in behavior betwe

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Alien Hunting: The Tricky Science

November 7, 2024

Imagine you're on a quest to find aliens. But what exactly are you searching for? And how do you know if you've found them? Scientists use a slightly different approach. They think about it like a test with two results: true or not quite right. They use something called the Bayes factor to compare t

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Why Quiet Aliens Are Tough to Find, but Loud Ones Might Be Everywhere

November 7, 2024

Imagine life's journey to humans as a series of difficult steps. The chance of completing these steps grows with time. Experts studied when smart life like us could appear in the universe. They found that most of it might come after today, unless these steps are few and planets last a long time. Thi

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Farewell, NEOWISE: Asteroid Hunter's Final Orbit Ends in a Blaze

November 7, 2024

NASA's NEOWISE spacecraft, which spent over a decade hunting near-Earth objects like asteroids, met its end in a dramatic way. On November 1, the craft burned up in Earth's atmosphere, as expected. Launched in 2009 as WISE, its main mission was to explore the universe in infrared light. When its coo

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NASA's VIPER Rover: A New Path Forward

November 7, 2024

NASA's VIPER lunar rover mission, which was canceled in July, is now under review for potential repurposing. About 50 initial expressions of interest were received, with a more formal request for information (RFI) issued afterward. NASA is currently considering partnerships to move forward with the