1+ week, 5+ day ago   (631+ words) Ever since Einstein wrote E=mc2, scientists have dreamed of harnessing the power of atoms. Nuclear fusion can provide vast amounts of energy from a small amount of fuel. Understanding how fusion works is one thing. Making it work is quite…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (485+ words) A Portland State University fellow builds statistical tools that can sift useful signals. Separating signal from noise is essential across disciplines. This process helps researchers determine if atmospheric data patterns are real, if fraudulent activity has occurred in banking or…...

3+ mon, 2+ week ago   (592+ words) A fellow attempts to move machine learning from pattern recognition to scientific reasoning. Jerry Liu works at the intersection of pure mathematics and these cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools. He focuses on improving these methods in areas such as differential equations,…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago   (458+ words) Earthlings see one star, the sun, when they look into a clear sky during the daytime. The fictional denizens of the bleak Star Wars planet Tatooine, however, see two suns. “If you think about our solar system, for example, we…...

5+ mon, 2+ week ago   (462+ words) Respiratory illness levels in the counties surrounding California’s 2018 Camp Fire (location marked) above what would have been expected if the fire hadn’t occurred. Darker reds indicate higher levels of illness, and dashed lines mark areas with low population, which leads…...

6+ mon, 1+ week ago   (821+ words) Tristan Maxson had an intriguing question: Could a high-performance machine learning model trained only on the physics of liquid water also accurately simulate water’s ice and gas phases? The authors of a 2023 paper concluded it couldn’t. For Maxson, it was…...

7+ mon, 3+ week ago   (543+ words) A color map centered on Enceladus’ south pole, as seen from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The tiger stripes are the central bluish lines. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Lunar and Planetary Institute.) When Daniel Abdulah learned to write, his earliest…...

8+ mon, 2+ week ago   (537+ words) Three years ago, Carlyn Schmidgall joined a dozen other researchers aboard a ship off Nome, Alaska, to collect high-resolution data that could reveal small-scale processes with big implications for the Arctic Ocean and sea ice. “These processes occur on such…...

9+ mon, 2+ week ago   (291+ words) Snapshot from a black hole simulation showing matter rapidly accreting and spiraling toward the center (yellow). (Image: Lizhong Zhang, Chris White, Kyle Felker, AthenaK Development Team, ALCF Visualization team.) For his DOE CSGF practicum in 2016, Felker worked with physicist William…...

10+ mon, 1+ week ago   (328+ words) Madeleine Kerr was a double major in physics and theater at Harvey Mudd College and studied acting at a London conservatory for a semester. She produces and directs plays about scientists, casting a researcher in each role, from lead actor…...