Scientific News
Articles across mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy.
Science
History of mathematics
The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, followed closely by Ancient Egypt and the Levantine
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Science
History of geology
The history of geology is concerned with the development of the natural science of geology. Geology is the scientific study of the origin, history, and structure of the Earth.
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History of materials science
Materials science has shaped the development of civilizations since the dawn of humankind. Better materials for tools and weapons has allowed people to spread and conquer, and advancements in material processing like steel and aluminum production continue to impact society today. Historians have regarded materials as such an important aspect of civilizations such that entire periods of time have d
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Science
History of genetics
The history of genetics dates from the classical era with contributions by Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, and others. Modern genetics began with the work of the Augustinian friar Gregor Johann Mendel. His works on pea plants, published in 1866, provided the initial evidence that, on its rediscovery in the 1900s, helped to establish the theory of Mendelian inheritance. In ancient Gre
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History of general relativity
General relativity is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915, with contributions by many others after 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses. Before the advent of general relativity, Newton's law of universal gravitation had been accepted for
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Science
History of molecular biology
The history of molecular biology begins in the 1930s with the convergence of various, previously distinct biological and physical disciplines: biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, virology and physics. With the hope of understanding life at its most fundamental level, numerous physicists and chemists also took an interest in what would become molecular biology. In its modern sense, molecular bio
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Science
History of gravitational theory
In physics, theories of gravitation postulate mechanisms of interaction governing the movements of bodies with mass. There have been numerous theories of gravitation since ancient times. The first extant sources discussing such theories are found in ancient Greek philosophy. This work was furthered through the Middle Ages by Indian, Islamic, and European scientists, before gaining great strides du
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Science
History of lead
Lead (chemical symbol: Pb, atomic number: 82) is one of the earliest metals worked by humans. It is known to have been smelted as early as the 7th millennium BC and spread widely due to its frequent association with silver ores. Ancient civilizations across the Near East, Mediterranean, Asia, Africa, and the Americas employed lead in construction, tools, currency, cosmetics, warfare, and writing,
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Science
History of information theory
The study of information theory began with the publication of Claude E. Shannon's classic paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in the Bell System Technical Journal in July and October 1948, although Shannon had substantially completed the paper at Bell Labs by the end of 1944, Shannon introduced the qualitative and quantitative model of communication as a statistical process, opening wi
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Science
History of mathematical notation
The history of mathematical notation covers the introduction, development, and cultural diffusion of mathematical symbols and the conflicts between notational methods that arise during a notation's move to popularity or obsolescence. Mathematical notation comprises the symbols used to write mathematical equations and formulas. Notation generally implies a set of well-defined representations of qua
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Science
History of logarithms
The history of logarithms is the story of a correspondence (in modern terms, a group isomorphism) between multiplication on the positive real numbers and addition on real number line that was formalized in seventeenth century Europe and was widely used to simplify calculation until the advent of the digital computer. The Napierian logarithms were published first in 1614. E. W. Hobson called it "
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History of model organisms
Model organisms are specific organisms studied to gain knowledge of other organisms, to generalize both within and between species. Model organisms offer standards for comparison of other organisms. Model organism strains are standardized by inbreeding and cloning, to limit genetic variation and create a precise basis for comparison. Some organisms are experimentally convenient and/or important fo
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History of manifolds and varieties
The study of manifolds combines many important areas of mathematics: it generalizes concepts such as curves and surfaces as well as ideas from linear algebra and topology. Certain special classes of manifolds also have additional algebraic structure; they may behave like groups, for instance. In that case, they are called Lie groups. Alternatively, they may be described by polynomial equations, in
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Science
History of gunpowder
Gunpowder is the first explosive to have been created in the world. Popularly listed as one of the "Four Great Inventions" of China, it was invented during the late Tang dynasty (9th century) while the earliest recorded chemical formula for gunpowder dates to the Song dynasty (11th century). Knowledge of gunpowder spread rapidly throughout Eurasia, possibly as a result of the Mongol conquests duri
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Science
History of longitude
The history of longitude describes the centuries-long effort by astronomers, cartographers and navigators to discover a means of determining the longitude (the east-west position) of any given place on Earth. The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation. In particular, for safe ocean navigation, knowledge of both latitude and longitude is required, however latitude
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Science
History of group theory
The history of group theory, a mathematical domain studying groups in their various forms, has evolved in various parallel threads. There are three historical roots of group theory: the theory of algebraic equations, number theory and geometry. Joseph Louis Lagrange, Paolo Ruffini, Niels Henrik Abel and Évariste Galois were early researchers in the field of group theory.
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Science
History of manufactured fuel gases
The history of gaseous fuel, important for lighting, heating, and cooking purposes throughout most of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, began with the development of analytical and pneumatic chemistry in the 18th century. These "synthetic fuel gases" (also known as "manufactured fuel gas", "manufactured gas" or simply "gas") were made by gasification of combustible materia
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Science
History of mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline centered around the concept of using force multipliers, moving components, and machines. It utilizes knowledge of mathematics, physics, materials sciences, and engineering technologies. It is one of the oldest and broadest of the engineering disciplines.
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Science
History of gold
Gold is a chemical element; its chemical symbol is 'Au' (from Latin aurum) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a bright-metallic-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. 75% of the presently accounted for gold has been extracted since 1910, two-thirds since 1950.
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Science
Highly composite number
A highly composite number is a positive integer that has more divisors than all smaller positive integers. If d(n) denotes the number of divisors of a positive integer n, then a positive integer N is highly composite if d(N) > d(n) for all n < N. For example, 6 is highly composite because d(6) = 4, and for n = 1,2,3,4,5, you get d(n) = 1,2,2,3,2, respectively, which are all less than 4. A related
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Science
Hilary Koprowski Prize in Neurovirology
The Hilary Koprowski Prize in Neurovirology was established in 2014 by Drexel University in honor of Dr. Hilary Koprowski's contributions to the field of neurovirology. The prize is awarded annually in conjunction with the International Symposium on Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease, which is sponsored by the Institute for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease (IMMID) within the Drexel
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Science
High-level assembler
A high-level assembler in computing is an assembler for assembly language that incorporate features found in a high-level programming language. The earliest high-level assembler was probably Burroughs' Executive Systems Problem Oriented Language (ESPOL) in about 1960, which provided an ALGOL-like syntax around explicitly-specified Burroughs B5000 machine instructions. This was followed by Niklaus
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Science
Historical ecology
Historical ecology is a research program that focuses on the interactions between humans and their environment over long-term periods of time, typically over the course of centuries. In order to carry out this work, historical ecologists synthesize long-series data collected by practitioners in diverse fields. Rather than concentrating on one specific event, historical ecology aims to study and un
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High-nutrient, low-chlorophyll regions
High-nutrient, low-chlorophyll (HNLC) regions are regions of the ocean where the abundance of phytoplankton is low and fairly constant despite the availability of macronutrients. Phytoplankton rely on a suite of nutrients for cellular function. Macronutrients (e.g., nitrate, phosphate, silicic acid) are generally available in higher quantities in surface ocean waters, and are the typical component
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Science
Historical astronomy
Historical astronomy is the science of analysing historic astronomical data. The American Astronomical Society (AAS), established 1899, states that its Historical Astronomy Division "...shall exist for the purpose of advancing interest in topics relating to the historical nature of astronomy. By historical astronomy we include the history of astronomy; what has come to be known as archaeoastronomy
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Science
Hindu units of time
Hindu units of time are described in Hindu texts ranging from microseconds to trillions of years, including cycles of cosmic time that repeat general events in Hindu cosmology. Time (kāla) is described as eternal. Various fragments of time are described in the Vedas, Manusmriti, Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana, Mahabharata, Surya Siddhanta etc.
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Science
Highly charged ion
Highly charged ions (HCI) are ions in very high charge states due to the loss of many or most of their bound electrons by energetic collisions or high-energy photon absorption. Examples are 13-fold ionized iron, Fe13+ or Fe XIV in spectroscopic notation, found in the Sun's corona, or naked uranium, U92+ (U XCIII in spectroscopic notation), which is bare of all bound electrons, and which requires v
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Science
Hills cloud
In astronomy, the Hills cloud (also called the inner Oort cloud and inner cloud) is a theoretical vast circumstellar disc, interior to the Oort cloud and roughly aligned with the solar ecliptic plane, whose outer border would be located at around 20,000 to 30,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, and whose inner border, less well defined, is hypothetically located at 250–1500 AU, well beyond p
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Science
High-pressure chemistry
High-pressure chemistry is concerned with those chemical processes that are carried out under high pressure – pressures in the thousands of bars (one bar equals 100 kPa) or higher. High-pressure processes are generally faster and have a higher conversion efficiency than processes at ambient pressure. However, they are usually only beneficial on an industrial scale because of the investment in pl
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Highly hazardous chemical
A highly hazardous chemical, also called a harsh chemical, is a substance classified by the American Occupational Safety and Health Administration as material that is both toxic and reactive and whose potential for human injury is high if released. Highly hazardous chemicals may cause cancer, birth defects, induce genetic damage, cause miscarriage, injury and death from relatively small exposures.
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Science
Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine
The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine was founded in 2009 by Donald Singer and Michael Hulse. The founders "wished to draw together national and international perspectives on three major historical and contemporary themes uniting the disciplines of poetry and medicine: medicine as inspiration for the writings of poets; effects of poetic creativity on the experience of illness by patients,
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Science
Historical comet observations in China
Chinese records of comets are the most extensive and accurate in existence from the ancient and medieval periods and stretch back across three millennia. Records exist at least as far back as 613 BC, and records may have been kept for many centuries earlier. There are continuous records all the way through to the nineteenth century and use substantially consistent methods throughout. Chinese data
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Science
Highlands controversy of Northwest Scotland
The Highlands controversy was a scientific controversy which started between British geologists in the middle of the nineteenth century concerning the nature of the rock strata in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. The disagreement stemmed from the apparent ages of the strata, particularly the existence, now confirmed, of older rock above younger rock as well as duplicated and inverted strata, w
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Science
Historical models of the Solar System
Historical models of the Solar System first appeared during prehistoric periods and remain updated to this day. The models of the Solar System throughout history were first represented in the early form of cave markings and drawings, calendars and astronomical symbols. Then books and written records became the main source of information that expressed the way the people of the time thought of the
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Science
Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
In the history of gunpowder there are a range of theories about the transmission of the knowledge of gunpowder and guns from Imperial China to the rest of the world following the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties. The earliest bronze guns found in China date back to the 13th century, with archaeological and textual evidence for previous nascent gunpowder technology developed beforehand. Scholars note t
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Science
Highway network optimization
Highway network optimization is the problem of configuring highway networks to maximize economic and social utility. Numerous mathematical optimization techniques have been brought to bear on the problem, including linear programming and deep learning. Recent research has included work on treating the highway optimization problem as a dynamic system.
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Science
Hilberg's hypothesis
Hilberg's hypothesis (also known as Hilberg's law) is a conjecture in quantitative linguistics or a statistical law in information theory. It states that measures of information in natural language texts or samples of particular stochastic processes grow as a sublinear power of the sample length, possibly in addition to the term that is linear. It is closely related to Zipf's law and the neural sc
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Science
Histone monoaminylation
Histone monoaminylation refers to the post-translational modification in which monoamines (ie., dopamine, serotonin, histamine) are covalently attached to glutamine residue position 5 (Gln5) of histone H3 via transamidation. In general, monoaminylation refers to the overall class of post-translational modifications involving monoamines; however, these reactions are further classified by the indivi
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Science
History of astronomy
The history of astronomy focuses on the efforts of civilizations to understand the universe beyond earth's atmosphere. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences, achieving a high level of success in the second half of the first millennium. Astronomy has origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory. Early astronomical
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History of anatomy
The history of anatomy spans from the earliest examinations of sacrificial victims to the advanced studies of the human body conducted by modern scientists. Written descriptions of human organs and parts can be traced back thousands of years to ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, such as the liver clays and Egyptian papyri, where attention to the body was necessitated by their highly elaborate bur
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History of biology
The history of biology traces the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of biology as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching back to Ayurveda, ancient Egyptian medicine and the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world. This a
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History of alternative medicine
The history of alternative medicine covers the history of a group of diverse medical practices that were collectively promoted as "alternative medicine" beginning in the 1970s, to the collection of individual histories of members of that group, or to the history of western medical practices that were labeled "irregular practices" by the western medical establishment. It includes the histories of c
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History of astrology
Astrology is a belief in a relation between celestial observations and terrestrial events. People made conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles. Early evidence of such practices appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that the lunar cycle was being noted as early as 25,000 years ago; the first step towards recording the
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History of gamma-ray burst research
The history of gamma-ray burst research began with the serendipitous detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) on July 2, 1967, by the U.S. Vela satellites. After these satellites detected fifteen other GRBs, Ray Klebesadel of the Los Alamos National Laboratory published the first paper on the subject, Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin. Hundreds of models were developed in an attempt to
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Science
History of agricultural science
The history of agricultural science is a sub-field of the history of agriculture which looks at the scientific advancement of techniques and understanding of agriculture. Early study of organic production in botanical gardens was continued in with agricultural experiment stations in several countries. Fertilizer is a major contribution to agriculture history increasing the fertility of the soil an
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Science
History of Animals
History of Animals (Ancient Greek: Τῶν περὶ τὰ ζῷα ἱστοριῶν, Ton peri ta zoia historion, "Inquiries on Animals"; Latin: Historia Animalium, "History of Animals") is one of the major texts on biology by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. It was written in sometime between the mid-fourth century BC and Aristotle's death in 322 BC. Generally seen as a pioneering work of zoology, Aristotle frame
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History of ancient numeral systems
Numeral systems have progressed from the use of fingers and tally marks, perhaps more than 40,000 years ago, to the use of sets of glyphs able to represent any conceivable number efficiently. The earliest known clear notations for numbers emerged in Mesopotamia about 5000 or 6000 years ago.
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History of Lorentz transformations
The history of Lorentz transformations comprises the development of linear transformations forming the Lorentz group or Poincaré group preserving the Lorentz interval − x 0 2 + ⋯ + x n
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History of artificial life
Humans have considered and tried to create non-biological life for at least 3,000 years. As seen in tales ranging from Pygmalion to Frankenstein, humanity has long been intrigued by the concept of artificial life.
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History of biochemistry
The history of biochemistry can be said to have started with the ancient Greeks who were interested in the composition and processes of life, although biochemistry as a specific scientific discipline has its beginning around the early 19th century. Some argued that the beginning of biochemistry may have been the discovery of the first enzyme, diastase (today called amylase), in 1833 by Anselme Pay
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