Archaea cloaked in mystery

Culture, Cloaked in Mens Rea

Proof beyond reasonable doubt of the mens rea or state of mind associated with a particular crime is a requirement for the successful prosecution of all criminal defendants under our system of justice. In the legal jargon, it is part of the prosecution’s prima facie case. Concomitantly, criminal defendants may successfully challenge the case against them on the ground (among others) that the pr...

Death rate mystery

Knowing the true rate of death from covid-19 will help us fight the pandemic, but for the moment it eludes us, reports Michael Le Page.  

Electromagnetic Scattering by Approximately Cloaked Dielectric Cylinder

In cloaking, a body is hidden from detection by surrounding it by a coating consisting of an unusual anisotropic nonhomogeneous material. The permittivity and permeability of such a cloak are determined by the coordinate transformation of compressing a hidden 2D or cylindrical body into a line. Some components of the electrical parameters of the cloaking material (ε, μ) are required to have inf...

Archaea

A headline on the front page of the New York Times for November 3, 1977, read "Scientists Discover a Way of Life That Predates Higher Organisms". The accompanying article described a spectacular claim by Carl Woese and George Fox to have discovered a third form of life, a new 'domain' that we now call Archaea. It's not that these microbes were unknown before, nor was it the case that their pecu...

Cancer mystery in Norway