The search for dark matter — the invisible glue that binds the cosmos and makes up most of the mass of galaxies — is a bit like looking for a needle in a near-infinite haystack.
For one thing, scientists don’t know exactly what dark matter is. They are...
It’s just possible that artificial photosynthesis is right around the corner.
Photosynthesis is the natural process by which sunlight splits water molecules into oxygen, protons, and electrons and reduces carbon dioxide down to carbohydrates. Artificial...
Lightning strikes — perhaps a quintillion of them, occurring over a billion years — may have provided sparks of life for the early Earth.
A new study by researchers at Yale and the University of Leeds contends that over time, these bolts from the blue...
It’s not often that a breakthrough in sustainable chemistry is influenced by a fan letter.
Yet that’s what happened for Yale chemist Hailiang Wang, whose lab creates small-molecule and nanomaterial catalysts that remove unwanted material from the...
Mislav Baloković, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, has a prime viewing spot for the most famous black hole humans have ever seen.
That would be the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87, located 55 million light...
Alison Sweeney has long suspected the best blueprints for innovation already exist in nature.
They’re encrypted in the iridescence of giant clams. They’re hidden in the eyes of mid-ocean squid. They’re inscribed on the surface patterns of pollen.
You just...
One of Earth’s greatest mysteries is how it transformed itself, ever so gradually, from a barren ball of rock into a launching pad for life.
Earth scientists have spent decades piecing together the relevant clues — identifying and studying the planet’s...
This month, Insights & Outcomes roams far and wide for the latest Yale research. We start in the hippocampus, then visit with worms, check out some noteworthy ion collisions, and finish up on the membrane of a cell.
As always, you can find more...
Astrophysicist Marla Geha has been doing some trash talking lately.
Nothing unseemly or untoward, to be sure. Just friendly reminders that orbiting garbage is starting to clog up Earth’s satellite lanes like a halo of space waste.
Geha says we might want...