The science 2023, March

At all times, soothsayers and fortune-tellers were much more popular than scientists. Among all predictors, even in our time, the greatest interest is a person who lived five centuries ago - Nostradamus. Was this person truly endowed with incredible abilities? Or is Nostradamus just another talented charlatan? We will try to shed light on these questions

An emergency meeting was held at which the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot and the demigods from the planet Nibiru discussed the loss of interest in them, even among dumb Russian housewives. This joke about the TV-3 channel has been circulating on the Internet for a long time. But, despite the fact that such topics are considered yellow, a scientific approach is quite applicable to them

Radiation myths. Are X-rays and fluorography dangerous to health?

Sad record: Doomsday clock is set as close as possible to midnight. Humanity has only 100 seconds left, and it will be incredibly difficult to take the clock hands back. Why is this symbolic translation important and why such a “clock” was invented at all?

By observing the stars in the sky, we see light, often emitted by them thousands of years ago. But what happens to the light that an ordinary light bulb emits? What happens to him the moment we flip the switch? Let's try to figure it out

Novaya Gazeta drew attention to the fact that in the statistics of the capital - the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in Russia - in April 2020, an abnormal surge in deaths is visible. It is several times higher than the official figures for the death of people from Covid-19. Are the authorities hiding again? Naked Science took a closer look at the situation and found that the matter was completely different, not related in any way to the new disease. We tell you what it is about

Physicists announced the discovery of gravitational waves - perturbations of space-time predicted by Einstein. This discovery can take science to a new level of understanding of the history of the Universe

“Everything that could be invented has already been invented,” said Charles Duell of the US Patent Office in 1899, and was wrong. The greatest minds of the 19th century could not imagine how much the life of civilization would change in the 20th century. But we live in the era of informatization, and, using the available data, we can dream up what inventions will appear in the future

Everything in the universe is made up of elementary particles. Quantum physics is engaged in the study of them and related phenomena - a strange science, where there is a lot of uncertainty. But what if quantum effects extend not only to quantum scales, but to life in general? Quantum biology is looking for an answer to this question

While the Americans of the middle of the last century feverishly figured out how to keep up with the "evil empire", it was full of slogans: "Komsomol - on the plane", "Starry space - YES!" Today, the United States easily launches kites into spaceships, while ours still have to surf for the time being, perhaps, the Bolshoi Theater. & Nbsp; Understood in detail Naked Science

The fact that people should become an "interplanetary species" was probably not said only by the lazy one. But how will this be done? And will it be implemented at all?

There are many people on Earth who dream of moving to Mars and terraforming it, be it a science fiction writer, entrepreneur or inventor like Elon Musk. But what will it cost and how real are such dreams?

The existing continents are moving towards merging into one - it's only a matter of time, according to most researchers. A group of scientists decided to find out what will happen to the habitability of the Earth after this merger is completed. As it turned out, the temperature on the planet will rise significantly in any outcome. But if one of two possible supercontinents forms on land, it will get much colder. If a second supercontinent arises, the proportion of habitable solid surface, on the contrary, will increase. Why is that

The media around the world began to tell that new strains arose due to the weakening of restrictions, the removal of masks, and even under the influence of vaccines. They allegedly exerted evolutionary pressure, forcing the virus to bypass vaccine protection. Alas, real biology points to a very different - and more frightening - picture. Understanding the details

For many years we were shown photographs of a polar bear, exhausted beyond recognition, and said that extinction awaits not only them, but also other cold-loving animals. However, a number of scientific works in recent years indicate otherwise: there is no evidence that such animals are actually dying out. A number of indicators show that this is unlikely to happen at all during the current warming. The most numerous penguins of Antarctica have multiplied rapidly due to the retreat of ice. Reindeer number

The new work claims that global warming is exacerbating heat waves, thereby increasing deaths from them by thousands each year. True, the key author of this study has convincingly shown earlier that far more people die from the cold than from the heat. And it is very strange that he kept silent about the impact of global warming on the weakening of cold weather. In addition, deaths from heat waves have not increased at all in recent years, although climate change is setting record after record. But there is also a sharper pro

Philippe Munday founded a whole line of research: he was the first to establish that ocean acidification - a consequence of global warming - threatens the sense of smell and the ability to navigate in marine fish. Of course, this poses the threat of their extinction. For a long time, there was only one mystery: how existing fish species survived severe ocean acidification during past climate changes. Now everything is clearing up: it looks like Munday discovered an effect that never happened. Interestingly, I watched him with him

Russia was the first in the world to declare the need for re-vaccination: no other state has yet gone so far. Why did we do it, but the West did not? When will they start revaccinating there too? Is it necessary to do this at all or is it enough to monitor antibodies? Finally, what happens to the strongest outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus in our country, and when will it all end? Let's figure it out in more detail

This week, the media released news that can give you a shock: "Previously, about 14 thousand researchers left Russia, now - 70 thousand." We carefully examined the situation and are forced to note that there was nothing of the kind and is not present. In reality, we are not talking about scientists at all, and not even about highly qualified specialists. There are problems with scientists in Russia. But in this case, we are not talking about them, but about the fact that some former Komsomol leaders, who successfully settled in the RAS, confused the brain leak

A new study in Nature Climate Change claims that agricultural productivity has dropped by one-fifth since 1961 due to rising temperatures. This is absolutely amazing data: after all, earlier the same Nature showed that every fifth ton of biomass around us owes its existence to the processes behind anthropogenic global warming. How is it that the productivity of agriculture is falling due to warming, while the biomass of plants is increasing? Let's try to disassemble

The Brazilian Citizens' Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) said it had found a live virus in the Sputnik-V vaccine. What does it mean, and why haven't the more established Western players identified similar reasons for concern? There are other concerns as well. Both massive Western Covid-19 adenovirus vaccines cause unusual blood clots that have already been fatal. Are those who expect the same side effects from Sputnik right, and why in this case?

A year ago, almost everyone was sure that the epidemic would end quickly. After all, scientific research said: the immunity of those who have been ill is very strong, and repeated diseases are extremely rare. The Russian authorities still believe in this: the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, claims that only 1% are sick again. From this, Russia is still waiting for the achievement of "group immunity" in the fall - and, of course, the removal of covid restrictions. Unfortunately, these are empty hopes. I don't show data from other countries at all

August 1900 was marked by the II International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, at which one of the luminaries of science, David Hilbert, formulated the most cardinal problems that need to be resolved. 23 Hilbert's problems have defined many key directions in the development of mathematics in the last century

The smiling multi-billionaire plans to understand how effectively chalk in the stratosphere protects the planet from sunlight, and if the result is good, spray it there in gigantic amounts. This is potentially a fruitful idea: scientists have long shown that this way you can achieve complete coverage of the Earth with stable ice - right up to the equator. Alas, Gates' idea is plagiarism, and not the best one. A Soviet researcher proposed a similar one half a century ago with more effective sulfur. Another thing is more interesting: similar

Have you ever wondered if it is possible to travel at light speed? Perhaps, with the necessary technology to help us achieve this speed, we could one day fly to the edge of the universe and see what is beyond it?

How solar panels work

News of another misfortune has flooded the global media. Zika fever, which quickly turns into a pandemic, is easier than the flu. So what's the danger?

Albert Einstein is one of the most famous physicists of the 20th century. However, in addition to amazing theories that describe the large-scale world with incredible accuracy, he revealed one curious phenomenon: the stronger the gravity, the slower time passes

Anything, and wars too. But the main consequence will be hunger. Massive, terrible, hopeless. It has already begun

One of the most common questions about the safety of nuclear reactors is what happens if an earthquake, tsunami, or, for example, a plane crashes? Oddly enough, the designers of nuclear power plants prepared for almost all of these unlikely cases. And even in the case of such external influences, for which the designers did not prepare their reactors, they turned out to be quite safe for others. Let's try to understand in more detail how nuclear power plants manage to achieve such results

Until recently, even a green tech fanatic like Bill Gates believed that electric trucks would never be economically viable. But in a new interview, Elon Musk revealed figures that turn this picture upside down. The Tesla Semi, which will start selling in 2021, spends just one kilowatt-hour per kilometer. Why is this so important for the entire planet? And how exactly will truck manufacturers around the world, including Russian ones, suffer from the novelty? Let's try to figure it out

The moment is approaching that all the astronomers of the world have been looking forward to for many years. We are talking about the launch of the new space telescope "James Webb", which is considered to be a kind of successor to the famous "Hubble"

Our planet is unique. Just as each of us is different from the stone statues of the Roman gods, the Earth is different from Mars, Venus and other known planets. Let's tell the story of one of, perhaps, the most amazing and controversial hypotheses of our time - the Gaia hypothesis, which invites us to look at the Earth as a living organism

Despite the fact that the problem of thermonuclear fusion is more than half a century old, man is only approaching its solution. Why did this happen and will we have time to find the key to this reaction before the complete depletion of fossil fuels?

Less than a century ago, man first flew into space. Today, there are plans for colonies on Mars, settlements on the Moon, and asteroid drilling to extract resources. To what extent it is expedient and what it will give to the planet - in our material

The sequence of evolution of stellar systems was proposed by Edwin Hubble. The spiral galaxy is the most common type, and our galaxy, the Milky Way, belongs to this type. What other types of galaxies are there?

Why are we so attracted to cats, and why does a sense of shame arise in us? What makes us panic, and why is gossiping so exciting? We consider from the point of view of science the most interesting features of our behavior, including kissing

Despite the optimistic predictions of science fiction writers, the creation of artificial intelligence still seems to be a daunting task. And yet there are similar projects. Naked Science has selected the most promising of them

There are pages in Soviet history that arouse genuine pride in our past. The reusable spacecraft Buran is just such a case. And although the domestic shuttle made only one single flight, it forever changed world history. "Buran" had characteristics that were far ahead of their time. Why did the Energia-Buran program provoke heated discussions in the USSR? And why did the Russian leadership abandon the ambitious project?

Over the past few decades, our understanding of the universe has expanded significantly. However, space still holds many secrets, and the Great Attractor is one of them