The Science of Scratch-Offs: What Your Brain Can’t Resist | NOVA - PBS

A chaotic process called ferroptosis could cause some algal bloom collapses The algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool bloomed seemingly overnight. Algal blooms also collapse suddenly, and for at least one type of algae scientists have now found a clue as to why: A chemical reaction between iron and hydrogen peroxide that explodes their cells.

Some people remain mentally sharp even though their brains contain the biological changes associated with Alzheimer's disease. A new study from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience suggests that the answer may lie in how a rare group of brain cells, called immature neurons, responds to damage. The findings offer new insight into cognitive resilience, the brain's ability to continue functioning despite disease. One of the biggest unanswered questions in Alzheimer's research is why the disease affects people so differently. While many develop memory loss and dementia as Alzheimer's progresses, others show little or no cognitive decline despite having the same underlying brain pathology.

Schematic of an observational experiment using an X-ray free-electron laser to study the plasma formation dynamics of a microscale rod assembly target under a high-intensity femtosecond laser. Credit: National Institute for Fusion Science Understanding instabilities and turbulence in plasmas is one of the key challenges across a wide range of plasma research fields, including nuclear fusion, astrophysics and laser-plasma physics. In plasmas, slight disturbances can grow due to instabilities, and energy is transferred between structures of various sizes due to turbulence. These phenomena give rise to structures ranging from very small to large, which significantly influence the overall motion and energy flow of the plasma.

An ideologue should hate paleontology. It is always turning up something new. And sometimes the new stuff is really inconvenient. At one time, Neanderthal man was our dumb cousin. His stupidity caused him to lose the Darwinian battle for survival. National Geographic had the story back then.

This is the sound of our solar system's giants. By converting astronomical data into audio, we can now 'listen' to Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. This process, called sonification, translates light detected from the planets into unique and ethereal soundscapes.

While these grainy, black-and-white images might not look like much today, they were a huge deal at the time.