Science Spotlights

Turning Data Into Wild Rides Through Dark Domes

Aug 1, 2011

From their seats in the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, visitors swoop through a redwood forest, into a single redwood leaf and finally into an individual cell to watch photosynthesis take place. Then they travel back billions of years to watch the first stars wink on, heat up and explode, scattering into space many of life’s essential chemical elements.

Tracking Binary Black Holes

Jul 30, 2011

Two scientists from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology have been testing a method to look past the intense radiation pouring out of merging galaxy pairs to see the supermassive black holes at their cores. The researchers want to track how black holes located in the centers of merging galaxies spiral in toward each other until they also join, forming a single even-more-massive black hole.

Pollock: Artist and physicist?

Jul 29, 2011

At a glance, a painting by Jackson Pollock can look deceptively accidental: just a quick flick of color on a canvas. A quantitative analysis of Pollock’s streams, drips, and coils by scientists reveals, however, that the artist had to be slow — he had to be deliberate — to exploit fluid dynamics in the way that he did.

Beyond Darwin: Ways to Evolve New Functions

Jun 15, 2011

At a recent Kavli Futures Symposium, nineteen experts from a diverse range of fields discussed the promise of using the lab to understand and exploit the evolution of organisms -- an advance that may one day be used to develop new vaccines or other biotechnology products.