Good morning. It's Tuesday, May 19, and welcome to this week's Science & Technology newsletter. First time reading? Sign up here or click here to share with friends. |
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While we've recently been providing write-ups related to the news of the day, from David Attenborough and Anthropic to the National Science Foundation and Crude Oil, this week we've decided to explore some major topics that are often overlooked.
First, we're examining the sun—while wearing protective eyewear, of course—to learn how it both threatens and makes life possible on Earth. Next, we'll zoom into the smallest scales to break down atoms and examine the history behind the relatively recent model of how they work. Finally, we'll take on the role of spies to discover how ciphers, codebreaking, and more came to be as we uncover the field of cryptography.
Let us know what you think! Whether it's feedback on our email format, a comment on this week's topics, suggestions for future coverage, or something else, we're happy to hear from readers. You can get in touch by simply replying to this email.
—Marco Daniel Machado, 1440 Science & Technology Section Editor |
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The sun, 101
The sun is the closest star to Earth, located an average distance of 150 million kilometers (93,000,000 miles) away. It contains 99.8% of the solar system's mass—whose resulting gravity keeps the solar system intact—and a volume equivalent to about 1.3 million Earths. Revered across mythologies as a symbol of power and life, the sun is the primary source of energy for Earth's systems, sending over 10,000 times more energy than human civilization consumes.
The sun began forming 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of a molecular cloud of gas and is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium, with its interior divided into three layers: the core, the radiative zone, and the convection zone (see visualization). With a density 13 times that of lead and temperatures in the millions of degrees, hydrogen fusion in the core produces radiation that travels outward through the radiative zone. Once it reaches the convection zone, this energy churns plasma to the surface, or the photosphere, which is what we see from Earth.
Besides light, the sun also produces a stream of charged particles—solar wind—and a magnetic field, which interact with Earth to produce auroras and technology-disrupting geomagnetic storms. The interactions can be more severe at the peak of the sun's 11-year cycle, when sunspots, eruptive solar flares, and coronal mass ejections are more common (see visualization).
Learn even more by exploring all our findings on the Sun here.
Here's a sample of what we found ...
> The sun is not at the center of the solar system, nor do the planets orbit it. (Watch)
> Why the sunlight you see is older than the last ice age, even though it only takes eight minutes to reach Earth. (Watch)
> Is the sun musical? Hear samples of solar audio made from its vibrations. (Listen)
> How analyzing the sun revealed particles that can transform into other "flavors" as they move through space. (Watch) |
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Structures Underlying Matter |
What are atoms?
Atoms are the foundational building blocks of visible matter. Each is modeled as a dense nucleus of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons, surrounded by clouds of probability—orbitals—where negatively charged electrons are likely to be found. Most atoms form chemical bonds by sharing or transferring electrons with other atoms, forming the molecules that make up the solids, liquids, and gases we interact with every day.
The concept of atoms dates back about 2,500 years to Greece, where matter was theorized to be composed of indivisible particles—atomos. It was not until the 19th century that scientists realized that each element was composed of the same atoms, which combined to form compounds. Combining the discoveries of electrons (1897), protons (1917), and neutrons (1932) with the development of quantum mechanics, the quantum model of the atom was born.
By the 1960s, experiments revealed that atoms could be subdivided further. Protons and neutrons were shown to each be composed of three quarks, held together by the strong nuclear force, and this force holds protons, which repel one another, together in the nucleus. Today, atomic theory—within the Standard Model—helps explain chemical and nuclear reactions, radioactivity, and material properties, and organizes elements in the periodic table.
Learn even more by exploring all our findings on Atoms here.
Here's a sample of what we found ...
> Why you should thank stars for more than 90% of the atoms in your body. (View)
> Since opposite charges attract and like charges repel, what keeps protons together in the nucleus? (Watch)
> Can you make atoms out of antimatter? (Watch)
> Why scientists can't agree on the size of atoms. (Read) |
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Cryptography, explained
Cryptography is the use of algorithms to hide information. These algorithms, or ciphers, involve a series of steps that turn readable plaintext into unreadable ciphertext, which can only be revealed with knowledge of the decryption key. Historically used to protect messages, such as military secrets, from unauthorized parties, modern cryptographic methods encrypt and secure almost all data, including banking transactions, medical records, and web traffic (see how).
The earliest recorded ciphers involved substituting hieroglyphics, reversing the Hebrew alphabet, and coiled parchment that became illegible once unfurled. Like Nazi Germany's Enigma machine, these symmetric methods use the same key for encryption and decryption. By the information age, existing cryptographic methods became obsolete as computers could quickly test many keys and, increasingly, individuals could not meet in person to securely exchange keys.
Introduced in the 1970s, asymmetric cryptography obscures communications between unacquainted parties by combining a publicly available key with a private key (see how it works). Involving more computationally intensive mathematical functions, reverse-engineering private keys can take billions of years. Many systems leverage the security of asymmetric cryptography to privately share a key that can then be used for faster symmetric cryptography.
Because quantum computers can crack asymmetric cryptographic systems in hours, researchers have been actively developing quantum-resistant cryptographic standards.
Learn even more by exploring all our findings on Cryptography here.
Here's a sample of what we found ...
> The story of Kryptos, the cryptographic sculpture outside the CIA's headquarters that was unsolved for 35 years. (Listen)
> How a little "seasoning" helps encrypt and store passwords safely. (Watch)
> The cipher that mathematics has proven to be unbreakable. (Read)
> Learn about SIGABA, the US counterpart to the Enigma machine. (Read) |
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Like all great scientists, we love spending time researching the latest scientific breakthroughs, tech releases, engaging explainers, and the connections between science and society that are making headlines. Here's what we found this week.
> Carbon dioxide cools the upper atmosphere while warming near Earth's surface
Columbia Climate School | Staff. Researchers found that this pattern results from carbon dioxide's interactions with different wavelengths of infrared light, allowing it to trap thermal energy in some cases and radiate it into space in others. These effects were also quantified for ozone and water vapor, though their impacts are less influential than those of carbon dioxide. (Read | Learn about Earth's Atmosphere)
> Developing a drone navigation strategy inspired by honeybees
Delft University of Technology | Staff. Through Bee-Nav, robots perform short learning flights near home to learn to interpret their surroundings and develop a sense of direction and distance. Robots can then use this information to return home on their own, even when GPS is unavailable. (Read | Learn about Pollinators)
> Wine production leftovers almost as good as antibiotics given to chickens
Cornell University | Laura Reiley. When added to broiler chicken diets, grape pomace—grape skins, seeds, stems, and peels—was found to nearly match the performance of zinc bacitracin, one of the most widely used antibiotic growth promoters in the poultry industry. Grape pomace may be a viable replacement amid mounting concern over antimicrobial resistance and zinc bacitracin bans outside the US. (Read)
> Gravitational wave-based screening tool to find dark matter around black holes
MIT News | Jennifer Chu. Scientists have developed a method for predicting what a gravitational wave would look like if produced by black holes moving through dark matter, rather than empty space. The technique has already been applied to data captured by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA—the global network of gravitational wave observatories—to look for signs of dark matter's imprint. (Read | Learn about LIGO)
> Neural network used to create the first complete models of proteins in motion
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Celia Luterbacher. A collaboration between data processing experts and scientists developed an AI-based generative framework that produces complete, all-atom structural ensembles of proteins and their movements. The system opens the door to designing new medicines that target a protein's dynamic behavior, not just its shape. (Read | Learn about Generative AI) |
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"Never trust an atom. They make up everything." |
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