Events archive

Making the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner, renewable energy sources for the world’s automobile fleet will require dramatic improvements in rechargeable batteries: They will need to be lighter, less expensive, run 300-plus miles on a single charge and last...

The ribosome, found in all living cells, is the molecular machine that builds proteins. It faithfully attaches together amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – in the order determined by messenger RNA molecules, which in turn follow the...

For the past 60 years, progress in information technology has been governed by Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors on a semiconductor chip doubles every 18 months. However,   this remarkable trend is drawing to a close...

In this talk, we embark on a remarkable adventure that explores the hottest and most powerful objects in the universe. Our travels take us from the millions of tiny black holes that live in our own galaxy, the Milky Way...

The masterpieces of Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and many of their contemporaries are currently undergoing catastrophic changes, including paint discoloration and loss. This damage, which threatens many works of art of our cultural heritage, is associated with...

Black holes do not spend their lives alone in empty space. It is now known that at the center of almost every galaxy there is an enormous black hole, with a mass billions of times the mass of the sun...

Glaciers are shrinking, gas prices are rising - so is our energy-hungry way of life doomed? We believe, no. Every day our sun provides us with more than enough energy, if only we can catch it and make it available...

As electronics become faster and more powerful and the components of integrated circuits shrink, scientists are bumping up against the limitations imposed by fundamental physics, forcing them to invent new technologies. Today computer hard drives store information in tiny magnets...

An exploding star, or supernova, is one of the most violent events in the universe, giving off a billion stars' worth of light. Even thousands of years later, the remnants of these explosions are among the most beautiful and mysterious...