Category Archives: Space

Time Travel or Quantum Leap – Where Does Bitcoin Meet Relativity?

Artwork showing a Bitcoin symbol being sucked into a gravity well. Image: NaturPhilosophie
Blockchain Oddity

On 19 June 2018, a peculiar number emerged from the blockchain space.  The series of numbers and letters sent the cryptosphere into overdrive, sparking rampant talk of quantum computing breakthroughs, time travel, Satoshi’s return, and the esoteric meaning of Bitcoin. 

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Radioactivity and the Background of Dancing Particles

A picture showing dancing black silhouettes, each one bearing a Greek letter, over an abstract background symbolising a radiation event. Artwork: NaturPhilosophie
Natural Radiation

Our environment is permeated by radiation, present around us at all time.  We are constantly exposed to radioactivity from natural sources for the most part naturally occurring radioactive nuclei in rocks and cosmic rays – the ‘background’.  Without ado, this is my lowdown on radioactivity.

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Closer to Midnight… – The Countdown to Doomsday Earth

Artwork for Trinity Event's Doomsday Clock at One Minute Past Twelve. Digital Image: NaturPhilosophie
What Time Is It?

No need to be an atomic scientist, when you’re considering the state of the World today, to understand the picture is an alarming one.  Allegorically-speaking, the Earth is now only two minutes away from impending catastrophe. 

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Future Floods and Melting Ice Sheets – Predicting with GRACE

A picture showing the artist's vision of the buildings of Parliament and Big Ben clock tower being overtaken by the waves, or more precisely by a muddy version of Hokusai's Big Wave. Image: NaturPhilosophie
Forecasting Sea-Level Rise

On the whole, Earth scientists agree that melting of land ice greatly contributes to sea-level rise.  And one thing’s for sure.  Future global warming will exacerbate the risks posed to human civilisation.  But…  What if you could forecast major floods?  You can. 

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Ten Rivers on Earth – The Great Plastic Tide

Part drawing, part photograph showing a child riding a boat and collecting plastic containers from the clogged up surface of a river. Image: NaturPhilosophie
A Plastic Tide

10 rivers on Earth may be responsible for around 90% of oceanic plastic pollution in the World.

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Can Ayahuasca Feed Your Spirit?

Three pairs of hands holding an ethnic-style drinking bowl in unison, with stick-and-ball model of the dimethyltryptamine (DMT) drug molecule in the foreground centre of the image. Image: NaturPhilosophie
Spirit Molecule

Scientists found early evidence that Ayahuasca, a ceremonial psychedelic brew used by Amazon tribes for centuries, could help treat eating disorders.

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On the Rapid Demise of the Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica

A digital image showing the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica breaking down. Artwork: NaturPhilosophie
Pine Island Bay, Antarctica

A large chunk of the Pine Island Glacier has broken free today, the media announced.  The giant iceberg is estimated to cover an area of roughly 6,000 km2.  About a quarter the size of Wales in the United Kingdom.

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The Bizarre Behaviour of Negative Mass

"Hokusai's Wavelet", a take on the bouncing droplet in a Getty photograph (see original below). Artwork: NaturPhilosophie
Observing Negative Mass at Washington State University

Negative mass has always been theoretically possible, and the concept has finally made it from a mathematical idea on paper to a reality achieved in the lab.  Scientists at Washington State University have created a fluid with negative mass. 

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BIFoR FACE In Situ Experiment – Modelling the Response of a Temperate Woodland to Increased Levels of Carbon Dioxide

A photograph showing the view from underneath one of the BIFoR FACE in-situ experiment towers. Artwork: NaturPhilosophie
If the Forest Won’t Come to the Experiment, Why Not Bring the Experiment to the Forest?

The role that plants play in absorbing carbon dioxide is one of the great unknowns of climatology.  Now, an industrial-scale experiment in a Staffordshire forest has been designed to help fill gaps in our knowledge about climate change.  

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Cloud Atlas – A Manual on the Observation of Clouds and Other Meteors

An oil painting depicting "pile d’assiettes" (or pile of plates) clouds over Mount Fuji in Japan. Artwork: NaturPhilosophie
A Cloud Encyclopaedia

Since its first publication in 1896, the International Cloud Atlas has become an important reference tool for people working in meteorological services, aviation and shipping.

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