What are those colorful rings around the Sun? A corona visible only to Earth observers in the right place at the right time. Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Sun or Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of... Continue Reading →
People who have greater levels of mindfulness — or the tendency to maintain attention on and awareness of the present moment — are better able to cope with the pain of being rejected by others, according to a new study... Continue Reading →
Billions of years in the future, our dead sun will morph into a giant cosmic jewel, a new study suggests. Like the vast majority of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, the sun will eventually collapse into a white dwarf, an... Continue Reading →
The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy runs through this complex and beautiful skyscape. Seen toward colorful stars near the northwestern edge of the constellation Vela (the Sails), the 16 degree wide, 200 frame mosaic is centered on the glowing filaments of the Vela... Continue Reading →
In numerical analysis, Newton's method (also known as the Newton–Raphson method), named after Isaac Newton and Joseph Raphson, is a method for finding successively better approximations to the roots (or zeroes) of a real-valued function. The idea of the method is as follows: one starts with an initial guess which is... Continue Reading →
These ice spikes, called penitentes, form in high altitudes, where sunlight turns ice directly into water vapor, rather than melting it to water. Sun beams vaporize small dimples in the snow's surface. Then, the uneven surface directs sun into the... Continue Reading →
We’ve all experienced going to bed tired and waking up refreshed, yet how that happens at the molecular level remains a mystery. An international study published in Nature sheds new light on the biochemistry of sleep need in the brain. According to... Continue Reading →
Consciousness is everything people experience — from the taste of chocolate to the pain of a migraine, the disappointment of failing an exam to the thrill of holding a newborn baby. But the origin and nature of consciousness have puzzled... Continue Reading →
Ask anyone if they remember where they ate the juiciest burger, the sweetest cupcake or the smoothest bisque, and they probably can describe the location in great detail, down to the cross streets, the décor, and the table where they... Continue Reading →
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