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(Phys.org) -- At the heart of quantum mechanics lies the wave function, a probability function used by physicists to understand the nanoscale world. Using the wave function, physicists can calculate a system's future behavior, but only with a certain probability. This inherently probabilistic nature of quantum theory differs from the certainty with which scientists can describe the classical world, leading to a nearly century-long debate on how to interpret the wave function: does it representative objective reality or merely the subjective knowledge of an observer?

As it attempts to lead the world toward a more sustainable future, the United Nations has set a policy to move "towards a zero carbon future." [More]

By Tom Brown MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season is projected to be less active than in recent years with 11 tropical storms, six of which will intensify into hurricanes, U.S. [More]

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new book, Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior , by Leonard Mlodinow. Copyright

As you may remember from back in February , the Guardian U.S.

New laser-effect, discovered by scientists from the Vienna University of Technology, Princeton, Yale and ETH Zurich: If coupled, lasers can switch each other off, leading to a "laser blackout".

When stacking apples on a market stall, fruit sellers "naturally" adopt a particular arrangement: a regular pyramid with a triangular base. A French-German team, which includes in particular the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, has demonstrated that this arrangement is favored for reasons of mechanical stability. This work, which is published on the Physical Review Letters (PRL) website, could contribute to the design of organized porous materials.

Lions are one of just six carnivores that remain in East Africa today, compared with more than 15 species that shared the landscape before the dawn of Homo. Image: Kate Wong The impact of Homo sapiens on the environment over the past few hundred years has been so profound that some scientists term this chapter of Earth s history the Anthropocene . But humans may have begun wreaking ecological havoc far, far earlier than that.

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine When it comes to doing science on the International Space Station (ISS), the laws of gravity have been flipped: what goes up mostly stays up. [More]

Seeing a reminder that International Clinical Trials Day will soon occur, I wanted to recognize and thank the clinical research teams and volunteers that make this possible. Clinical research is an enormously complicated endeavor, requiring close cooperation from a number of disparate groups, including sponsors, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory and radiology staff, regulators, ethics committees, suppliers and the community, in addition to the people providing the infrastructure, such as the basic science researchers, statisticians, and managerial support

I’m sorry. Very, truly sorry.

For decades now physicists have contemplated the idea of an entire shadow world of elementary particles, called supersymmetry. It would elegantly solve mysteries that the current Standard Model of particle physics leaves unexplained, such as what cosmic dark matter is.

Cave-riddled hills jut steeply from the flat pine savanna of Runaway Creek Nature Reserve in Belize. Tapirs, jaguars and wild pigs call the forest-blanketed hillsides home.

By David Cyranoski of Nature magazine The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) in Beijing has taken the lead among the country's publishers in trying to clamp down on academic misconduct. [More]

When cosmetic gynecologist Adam Ostrzenski, MD set out to discover the elusive G-spot, the part of a woman s anatomy supposedly responsible for orgasm, he followed a flawed premise but his finding announced today will undoubtedly generate frantic media coverage. The discovery of the G-spot in a lone elderly corpse and the lack of information on just what Dr. O dissected are obvious limitations of the paper in the Journal of Sexual Medicine , a peer-reviewed publication from Wiley.