A mature male brown spider (Latrodectus geometricus). Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Invasive brown widow spiders on three continents were heavily infected with a single strain of Rhabdochlamydia, a bacterium related to major human and animal pathogens, including chlamydia. However, a bite from these spiders will not infect humans with chlamydia. Until now, Rhabdochlamydia … Read more
Credit: Harrison Haines from Pexels The spectacular aurora at the beginning of May this year showed the power that solar storms can unleash as radiation, but every now and then the sun does something far more destructive. Known as “solar particle events,” these bursts of protons directly from the sun’s surface can shoot out like … Read more
Lithouva – earliest fossil grape from the Western Hemisphere, ~60 million years from Colombia. The upper figure shows fossils accompanied by CT reconstruction. The bottom shows the artist’s reconstruction. Credit: Fabiany Herrera, art by Pollyanna von Knorring. If you’ve ever eaten a raisin or enjoyed a glass of wine, you may partly have the extinction … Read more
On Earth, you can look up at night and see the moon shining from hundreds of thousands of miles away. But if you go to Venus, it wouldn’t be like that. Not every planet has a moon – so why do some planets have several moons while others have none? I’m a physics instructor who … Read more
Some 2D materials such as graphene, silicene (different from silicon), black phosphorus and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are electrically and mechanically superior to others. These materials could create high-speed photodetectors, advanced sensors, high-tech flexible electronics, and solar cells far more efficient than what we use today. However, currently, scientists do not have the perfect technique … Read more