A new online citizen science initiative, Fossilfinder, is inviting ordinary members of the public to help hunt for fossils in the Kenyan desert. The volunteers will have the opportunity to sift through one million images from the arid Turkana Basin – a key area for fossils of early human ancestors.
Continue reading Armchair Fossil Hunting in the Turkana Basin
With his wind-swept mane, the inimitable Richard Feynman looked devilishly handsome. And he darn-diddly knew it too! As for Fritz Haber, Rosalind Franklin and Neil deGrasse Tyson, they were the original hipsters. That’s according to BuzzFeed anyway…
Yes, modern-day hipsters take heed. BuzzFeed – the undisputed masters of click-bait – even made it a feature in unique BuzzFeed style: 11 Pictures That Prove That Scientists Were The Original Hipsters.
Marie Curie (1867-1934) – the ‘foreign student‘ who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She didn’t shy away from a bold pattern.
Fritz Haber (1868-1934) figured out the method used in industry to synthesise ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Known as the Haber-Bosch process, the food production for half the World’s current population depends on this method for producing nitrogen fertilisers. So, you wouldn’t dream of taking a dig at his glasses…
Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) may be considered to be the “father of the atomic bomb”, but you wouldn’t think of criticising his tie.
Stylish Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) was unravelling the mysteries of DNA structure, long before anyone even heard of DNA.
And Neil deGrasse Tyson? The only thing hotter than his facial hair are the supernovae he studied in his field of Astrophysics…
If you thought physicists weren’t known for their good dress sense, think again!
Green PlanetOnce upon a time, Europe was almost covered by one giant forest. Now, it’s almost entirely fields and grasslands. Humans are controlling tree densities. Understanding the global extent and distribution of forest trees is central to our understanding of the terrestrial biosphere. Continue reading Three Trillion Trees
Astronomers have found the smallest exoplanet yet to be directly photographed by a telescope on Earth. A methane-shrouded gas giant. A young Jupiter…
Continue reading Exoplanet ‘Young Jupiter’ 51 Eridani b
The radiocarbon 14C dating method has been used for decades to accurately determine the age of a wide range of artefacts. But our relentless use of fossil fuels has pumped a type of carbon into the atmosphere that is starting to confuse the dating technique. By 2050, scientists warn, new fabrics could have the same radiocarbon date as items 1,000 years old!
Waste fibres from cannabis crops can be transformed into high-performance low-cost pseudo-graphene energy storage devices.
Continue reading From Super Weed to Super-Capacitors, Another Surprising Use for Cannabis…
Look into my eyes. The eyes, the eyes. Not around the eyes. Don’t look AROUND the eyes. Look INTO my eyes. The eyes… [click] You’re not under! But… Can you read my mind?
Continue reading Eyes of the Beholder
Forensic researchers from the University of Salzburg have developed a new method for establishing an exact time of death after as long as 10 days – a significant step forward from the current method of measuring core body temperature, which only works up to 36 hours after death.
Continue reading We Check the Time of Death with Post-Mortem Degradation of Skeletal Proteins – And Other Gruesome Forensic Facts of Life
1/60 minute. 1/3,600 hour. 1/86,400 day. 1/1 hertz. The duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of a 133 55Cs caesium isotope corresponds to one second. But what does it look like? And where might you find a second?
Continue reading Just a Second…
Ever since the early days of human space travel, back in the 1960s, astronauts have run experiments involving plants in space. Over a million seeds of rocket (two kilograms of rocket seeds) are shortly due to take off from Florida, bound for the International Space Station, as part of British ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s six-month Principia mission.
Continue reading Space-Age Rocket
The Standard Model of Particle Physics describes the fundamental particles and their interactions via the strong, electromagnetic and weak forces, providing precise predictions for measurable quantities that can be tested experimentally. Here’s the latest!! It’s hot!!! It’s exciting!!! At least, if you’re a particle physicist…
Continue reading Rare Beauty Decays at CERN
One of the all-time most interesting elements in the Periodic Table, nitrogen is a colourless, odourless, inert diatomic gas that makes up to 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere. We breathe it everyday, although an atmosphere of pure nitrogen is nefarious to animal and human life. It is vital to life and plants simply strive on it. Nitrogen compounds are explosive, and nations have gone to war over it. It can feed… or kill.
Continue reading Nitrogen – Nature’s Explosive Building Blocks
Expedition 43 astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti snapped this photograph of herself wearing the Starfleet uniform from TV series “Star Trek: Voyager” aboard the International Space Station, and posted it on her Twitter account @AstroSamantha last month.
Continue reading Coffee’s Up!
Be under no illusion. You saw the sign: “Pickpockets are operating in this area”. You reacted. Instantly. The first thing you did was to check your pockets or handbag for signs of financial solvability. All is well. You relax. Only now, you’ve become the “mark”… because you’ve just given away precious information about the location of your valuables around your body.
Continue reading The Illusion of Choice – Now You See It, Now You Don’t…
Surrounding the town of El Ejido, Almeria Province, southern Spain is a sea of greenhouses, stretching for tens of kilometres, visible from space. Millions of tons of vegetables are exported from there to other European countries and further parts of the World. Along the Mediterranean coast, tourism flourishes, fuelling a booming real estate economy…
A ground-breaking one-year space mission involving twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly should help doctors, scientists and mission planners better understand the physical and psychological impacts of a long-duration spaceflight.
Continue reading The Real-Life Space Twin Paradox
Four states of matter can be seen in everyday life: solid, liquid, gas, and – somewhat more exotically – plasma. As a tightly bound combination of oxygen and hydrogen atoms, a water molecule is nothing out of the ordinary. Liquid water, steam or ice are still just water. Yet, it is intriguing to see how the very same building blocks of matter are capable of producing such broadly distinct states.
Continue reading Changing States – Fundamental Phases of Matter
Take one second and divide it a million times. Then, take one millionth of that second and divide it again… by a billion! All you’re left with is a femtosecond. That’s how fast the Linac laser at Palo Alto can deliver burst of X-rays and track chemical reactions in living systems… as they happen.
Ever since Francis Crick and James Watson brought Physics and Biology together in 1953 to unveil the molecular structure of DNA, the boundary between the two disciplines has continued to become increasingly blurred. In this genomic new era, ever more principles from Physics are being applied to living systems in an attempt to understand complexity at all levels. Although sometimes the best solution to a Physics problem lies in the macroscopic world of Biology…
At the beginning of the 20th century, the discovery of the radiometric “clock” revolutionised our understanding of the Earth’s deep history, confirming what geologists had been claiming for decades. Nevertheless, newer and more accurate dating methods posed further problems in themselves. After all, how do we know our Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and not a mere few thousands of years as suggested by the Bible?
Continue reading Testing Times – Methods of Dating the Geological Past
Our planet has existed for 4.5 billion years, and it has been a busy lifetime. From amazing leaps and bounds forward into evolution to devastating asteroid impacts and other episodic extinctions, here are the biggest milestones in Earth’s history – the eventful journey that shaped our World today.
A friend of mine once casually asked me over a drink: “What is entropy?” Eeek! Interesting concept. But… How do you define entropy in a non-mathematical way? How can you sum up entropy in 30 seconds? In one mental image. In a single concept… In one word. A form of energy? A measure of disorder in the Universe? Randomness? All of the above? Tricky question. And then, I dropped my glass…
Continue reading Thermodynamics and Entropy – Our Irreversible Universe
We all know about diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Well, as much as any of us can learn from watching the news whether on TV or on the Web. On average, the advice is loud and clear. You’re told to: eat healthily, exercise moderately. Additionally, don’t smoke, don’t take drugs and go easy on your alcohol consumption. Overall, it makes good sense. Your heart, your lungs and your liver play a major role in keeping you alive and well. That little, everybody realises. But how much do we really know when it comes to illnesses of the nervous system? And without a healthy nervous system, well… This article deals with Multiple Sclerosis. It is an attempt to fill a gap in my own general ignorance and to inform others about this cruel condition…
Continue reading We Need to Talk about Multiple Sclerosis…
It’s not often you can see lightning above Glasgow, so this 2006 Flickr photograph is a rare and impressive sight. But that’s not the point… A study by researchers in the United Kingdom shows it is not just conditions here on Earth that determine how much thunder and lightning we get. The Sun’s magnetic field also has a major influence, more than doubling the number of lightning bolts on some days…
Continue reading Lightning and the Sun’s Magnetic Field
Honeybees are essential to our ecosystem, but sadly their numbers have dwindled in recent years. Now, the rooftops above George Square are host to the latest addition in the Scottish local authority’s long-term sustainability initiative with two new beehives located on the roof of the iconic Glasgow City Chambers.
Continue reading It’s the Bee’s Knees – And Glasgow’s New Rooftop Tenants are Literally Buzzing…
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