Page 59 - Simons Foundation News Today

As President Biden announces his bid for re-election, Jack Arrowsmith debates if age should be a consideration when determining our leaders.

Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a new class of integrated photonic devices--“leaky-wave metasurfaces”--that convert light initially confined in an optical waveguide to an arbitrary optical pattern in free space. These are the first to demonstrate simultaneous control of all four optical degrees of freedom, setting a world record. Because they’re so thin, transparent, and compatible with photonic integrated circuits, they can be used to improve optical displays, LIDAR, optic...

The initiative, funded by six philanthropies in collaboration with the L.A. Partnership for Early Childhood Investment, will explore the critical issues affecting California’s youngest residents, their parents, care providers and educators.

Autistic children taking the drug showed improvements in some behaviors but not in their social skills.

The planned $700 million island campus will foster coastal sustainability and job training for the green economy. And befitting the Big Apple, it will be unlike any other climate research facility in the country.

A major challenge in human genetics is understanding which parts of the genome drive specific traits or contribute to disease risk. This challenge is even greater for genetic variants found in the 98% of the genome that does not encode proteins. A new approach developed by researchers at New York University and the New York Genome Center combines genetic association studies, gene editing, and single-cell sequencing to address these challenges and discover causal variants and genetic mechanisms ...

A new phase of matter called a “time crystal” plays with our expectations of thermodynamics. The physicist Vedika Khemani talks with Steven Strogatz about its surprising quantum behavior.

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have made a remarkable discovery about cellophane bees – their microbiomes are some of the most fermentative known from the insect world. These bees, which are named for their use of cellophane-like

Epilepsy affects approximately 1-in-26 people and the most common form, known as temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), often cannot be adequately treated with anti-seizure medications. Patients with this form of epilepsy may require neurosurgery to provide relief from seizures.

The hub, expected to open in 2028, was met with enthusiasm for its promise of thousands of green jobs and innovations turned into profitable technologies. But it comes with risk and no guarantees.