La ciencia en los medios

How can we trust recent claims Earth is on the brink of a sixth mass extinction, when we can’t say with certainty how many species our planet has?

Whether they’re from humans, whales, or elephants, the brains of many mammals are covered with elaborate folds. Now, a new study shows that the degree of this folding follows a simple mathematical relationship—called a scaling law—that also explains the crumpling of paper. That observation suggests that the myriad forms of mammalian brains arise not from…

Uno de los animales más extraños y antiguos que habita los mares, el caballito de mar, está inspirando algunas de las más novedosas aplicaciones robóticas. Un equipo internacional de investigadores ha creado dos modelos de colas con tecnología 3D, una cilíndrica y otra cuadrada como la de los hipocampos. Al compararlas, los científicos demuestran que,…

¿Pero por qué los orgasmos son tan placenteros y cómo es posible que las mujeres experimenten múltiples orgasmos? ¿Y realmente existe el tan mentado punto G? En los últimos años se han hecho numerosos estudios y, finalmente, estamos obteniendo algunas respuestas.

The biologist Deborah Gordon has uncovered how ant colonies search efficiently without central organization, an insight that might improve computer networks.

Nanopartikula magnetikoak tumore-zelulen aurka erabiltzeko, hainbat ikerketa-lan egin dituzte EHUko Elektrizitatea eta Elektronika Saileko ikertzaileek. Zehazki, hipertermiaren arloan ari dira lanean.

The 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic left a troubling legacy in Europe: More than 1300 people who received a vaccine to prevent the flu developed narcolepsy, an incurable, debilitating condition that causes overpowering daytime sleepiness, sometimes accompanied by a sudden muscle weakness in response to strong emotions such as laughter or anger. The manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has acknowledged the link, and some patients and their families have…

Working out how to build ethical robots is one of the thorniest challenges in artificial intelligence. Real-life roboticists are citing Asimov’s laws a lot these days: their creations are becoming autonomous enough to need that kind of guidance.

In the science fiction movie Inception, Leonardo Di Caprio and his gang set out to implant specific memories into individuals’ brains in order to pull off the perfect crime. But in the real world of science implanting memories is actually quite easy – the challenge is tracking the brain cells involved in the process. Our…