The Loop and the Silence Dr. Celia Blanco. Photo courtesy of Celia Blanco Astrobiologist Celia Blanco on how life begins, how civilizations last, and why a quiet galaxy may not be an empty one Editor’s Note Celia Blanco’s research reaches across two distant scales in the story of life. She asks how the first molecules
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Cold Made From Heat Jingyuan Xu. Photo courtesy of Jingyuan Xu Yi-Ting Hsiau. Photo courtesy of Yi-Ting Hsiau Jingyuan Xu and Yi-Ting Hsiau on a metal that moves when warmed, cools when released, and a refrigerator whose engine is a strip of the same metal Editor’s Note Most refrigerators and air conditioners on Earth work
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Where’s the Catch? Portrait. Credit: Pedro Barrios Hita, HHU Pedro Barrios Hita on what really happens when you try to write quantum mechanics with real numbers Editor’s Note Anyone familiar with complex numbers knows they can be described using two real numbers. The extra ingredient is the imaginary unit, i, defined by i² = −1.
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The First Sugar Between the Stars Dr. Izaskun Jiménez-Serra at the Yebes 40m telescope. Image credit: Yebes Observatory (Guadalajara, Spain) Izaskun Jiménez-Serra on finding a fragile molecule near the heart of the galaxy, and what it may have carried to the early Earth Editor’s Note Before stars were born, before the Sun ignited, before planets
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A High-Speed Camera for the Electron Raffael Spachtholz (left) and Katharina Glöckl (right) beside the scanning tunneling microscope setup used in the experiment · Credit: Katharina Glöckl and Raffael Spachtholz, University of Regensburg Katharina Glöckl and Raffael Spachtholz on catching an electron in the act Editor’s Note Some experiments reveal, above all, the limits of
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When Chemistry Became Biology Jack W. Szostak, 2025 · Photo by Christopher P. Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons A Nobel laureate explores the moment chemistry first became biology Editor’s Note Dr. Jack W. Szostak is University Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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The Language Before Language Prof. Gustavo Caetano-Anollés in his laboratory · © University of Illinois Dr. Gustavo Caetano-Anollés on dipeptides, dual codes, and the emergence of biological meaning Editor’s Note I first encountered Gustavo Caetano-Anollés through a paper that immediately drew my attention. Not because of its conclusions, but because of the scale of the
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The Emergence of Seconds Dr. Giovanni Barontini · © University of Birmingham An experiment suggests that time may not be fundamental, but something that emerges from within Editor’s Note Giovanni Barontini is Professor of Physics at the University of Birmingham, where he is part of the Atomic Quantum Systems group. His research focuses on ultracold
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The Pattern Life Leaves Behind Self portrait · Photo courtesy of Dr. Fabian Klenner The search for life beyond Earth is looking in a new place: the statistical order hidden in molecules Editor’s Note Dr. Fabian Klenner is an assistant professor of planetary sciences at the University of California, Riverside, and co-author of a study
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Self portrait of Henriette van Praag, Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute and Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. Image credit: Henriette van Praag How a protein released by exercising muscle may hold the key to protecting the aging brain — without touching a single amyloid plaque Editor’s Note For nearly a
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