Science and Spirit

Fermi's Discovery and the Dawn of Nuclear Fission In the annals of scientific discovery, few stories illustrate the unpredictable nature of research quite like Enrico Fermi's 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics. What began as groundbreaking work on artificial radioactivity would ultimately reveal something far more momentous—and dangerous—than anyone initially imagined. The Slow Neutron Revolution By the mid-1930s, the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi had already established himself as one of the world's leading nuclear researchers. Working at the University of Rome with his talented team, Fermi was systematically bombarding elements across the periodic table with neutrons, seeking to create new radioactive isotopes. The work built upon the pioneering research of Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who had discovered artificial radioactivity just two years earlier. Fermi's breakthrough came through an almost accidental observation. While conducting experiments in 1...

Two neutron stars spiral toward an explosive collision. Recent evidence supports the theory that many of the periodic table's heavier elements form through such crashes. - Ron Miller Nature's Cosmic Forge: How the Universe Creates Gold in Its Most Violent Moments The gold in your wedding ring was forged in the death throes of neutron stars—and we finally witnessed this cosmic alchemy in action By S Pendergast and Claude A Wedding Ring's Violent Past The next time you admire a piece of gold jewelry, consider this: every atom of that gleaming metal was born in one of the most violent events imaginable—the catastrophic collision of two dead stars moving at 30% the speed of light, or in the final gasps of a bloated, dying star undergoing nuclear convulsions. The gold adorning ancient Egyptian pharaohs, filling the vaults of Fort Knox, and circulating in our smartphones all share this same explosive heritage. For decades, astronomers could only theorize about where gold...

interactive graphic Genetic Roots of Eight Major Psychiatric Disorders Shared Revolutionary Treatment Targets Common Biological Pathways February 2025 - In a discovery that could fundamentally change how we understand and treat mental illness, researchers at the University of North Carolina have identified the specific genetic mechanisms that underlie eight major psychiatric disorders, revealing why conditions like autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, and depression often occur together in the same individuals and families. The groundbreaking study, published in Cell journal, analyzed nearly 18,000 genetic variants linked to autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anorexia nervosa. The research team, led by Dr. Hyejung Won and Dr. Patrick Sullivan from UNC's Department of Genetics, discovered that variants shared across multiple disorders operat...

  A Little Red Dot galaxy (center) in false color. James Webb Space Telescope finds Strange "Little Red Dots" That Challenge Our Understanding of Early Cosmic Evolution COSMOS-Web reveals mysterious galaxy populations powered by unexpectedly massive black holes in the infant universe When the James Webb Space Telescope began peering into the most distant reaches of the cosmos, astronomers expected to find small, relatively simple galaxies from the universe's youth. Instead, the telescope's largest survey has revealed a population of mysterious objects that are forcing scientists to reconsider fundamental assumptions about how the early universe evolved. The COSMOS-Web survey is now complete, combining JWST and Hubble infrared data to create the largest, deepest view of the Universe ever acquired with JWST. Spanning 0.54 deg² NIRCam imaging survey in four filters over 255 hours of telescope time, this ambitious project has catalogued nearly 800,000 galaxies acr...