Quanta Podcast – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:18:44 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/#respond Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:30:49 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=141862 The post The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a honeybee. In many ways, your world is small. Your four delicate wings, each less than a centimeter long, transport your half-gram body through looming landscapes full of giant animals and plants. In other ways, your world is expansive, even grand. Your five eyes see colors and patterns that humans can’t, and your multisensory antennae detect odors from distant…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/feed/ 0 The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/#respond Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:18:08 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140436 The post The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The bottom of the ocean is cold, dark and under extreme pressure. It is not a place suited to the physiology of us surface dwellers: At the deepest point, the pressure of 36,200 feet of seawater is greater than the weight of an elephant on every square inch of your body. Yet Earth’s deepest places are home to life uniquely suited to these challenging conditions. Scientists have studied how the…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/feed/ 0 Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-prove-that-heat-destroys-entanglement-20240828/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-prove-that-heat-destroys-entanglement-20240828/#respond Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:09:05 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140110 The post Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Nearly a century ago, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger called attention to a quirk of the quantum world that has fascinated and vexed researchers ever since. When quantum particles such as atoms interact, they shed their individual identities in favor of a collective state that’s greater, and weirder, than the sum of its parts. This phenomenon is called entanglement. Researchers have a firm…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-prove-that-heat-destroys-entanglement-20240828/feed/ 0 Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2024 14:25:32 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139592 The post Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In 1896, the Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius realized that carbon dioxide (CO2) traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere — the phenomenon now called the greenhouse effect. Since then, increasingly sophisticated modern climate models have verified Arrhenius’ central conclusion: that every time the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere doubles, Earth’s temperature will rise between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/feed/ 0 What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-happens-in-a-mind-that-cant-see-mental-images-20240801/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-happens-in-a-mind-that-cant-see-mental-images-20240801/#respond Thu, 01 Aug 2024 14:30:51 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139440 The post What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Two years ago, Sarah Shomstein realized she didn’t have a mind’s eye. The vision scientist was sitting in a seminar room, listening to a scientific talk, when the presenter asked the audience to imagine an apple. Shomstein closed her eyes and did so. Then, the presenter asked the crowd to open their eyes and rate how vividly they saw the apple in their mind. Saw the apple? Shomstein was confused.

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