Specialty Digest

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Encyclopedia

Science & Mathematics

Physics, chemistry, biology, space and mathematics

Covalent bond

In simple terms A covalent bond is what holds two atoms together when they share electrons. Molecules are built from them. Sharing suits atoms whose outer electron shells are incomplete. Each atom contributes, and both end up more stable than they were apart. How it works IUPAC describes a covalent bond as a region of

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A covalent bond holds two atoms together through shared electrons, creating a dense region of electron charge between their nuclei.

A researcher working with gene-editing technology in a laboratory

CRISPR

CRISPR is a gene-editing technology that allows scientists to make precise, targeted changes to DNA by exploiting a natural defense system originally found in bacteria. The full name, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, describes a distinctive pattern of repeated DNA sequences that bacteria use to store a genetic memory of viruses that previously infected

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A gene-editing technology that allows precise, targeted changes to DNA, adapted from a bacterial immune defense system.

DNA double helix

In simple terms The DNA double helix is the twisted, ladder-like structure of the DNA molecule, discovered in 1953, that explained for the first time how genetic information could be physically stored and accurately copied inside living cells. [1] How it was discovered By the early 1950s, scientists knew DNA likely carried genetic information but

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The DNA double helix is the twisted, ladder-like structure of DNA, discovered in 1953, that explained how genetic information is stored and copied.

A diagram illustrating enzyme structure and its active site

Enzyme

An enzyme is a biological molecule, almost always a protein, that speeds up a specific chemical reaction inside a living organism without itself being permanently changed or consumed in the process. Enzymes act as biological catalysts, often accelerating reactions that would otherwise occur far too slowly to sustain life, sometimes by factors of a million

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A biological molecule, almost always a protein, that speeds up a specific chemical reaction without being consumed.

Erosion

In simple terms Erosion is the wearing away of the land surface, and the carrying of the loosened material somewhere else. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines it as the wearing away of the land surface by water, wind, ice, gravity or other natural or human agents that abrade, detach and remove soil

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Erosion is the wearing away of the land surface by water, wind, ice or gravity, and the removal of the loosened material elsewhere.

A portrait of Charles Darwin, who proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection

Evolution

Evolution is the process by which populations of living organisms change in their genetic characteristics across successive generations, ultimately producing the enormous diversity of life found on Earth today from shared common ancestors. The modern understanding of evolution rests chiefly on the theory of natural selection, proposed jointly by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace

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The process by which populations of organisms change genetically across generations, producing the diversity of life on Earth.

An artist concept of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c

Exoplanet

An exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun, situated anywhere else in the universe beyond our own solar system. Astronomers had long suspected that other stars hosted planets of their own, but the first confirmed detection of an exoplanet orbiting an ordinary, Sun-like star came only in 1995, when Swiss

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A planet that orbits a star other than the Sun, located beyond our own solar system.

A replica model of the DNA double helix

Gene

A gene is a specific segment of DNA that contains the instructions needed to build a particular protein or functional RNA molecule, making it the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. Genes are passed from parents to offspring and collectively determine many of an organism inherited traits, from eye color to susceptibility to certain

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A specific segment of DNA containing the instructions to build a particular protein, the basic unit of heredity.

Geometric triangles illustrating basic shapes

Geometry

Geometry is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces, and solids in space. It is one of the oldest fields of mathematics, with roots in the practical problems of measuring land, constructing buildings, and tracking the motion of celestial bodies, and it remains central to fields ranging

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The branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of points, lines, shapes, and space.