Eyes of the Beholder

Look into my eyes! Image: NaturPhilosophie
Reading Someone’s Mind through their Eyes?

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

We Check the Time of Death with Post-Mortem Degradation of Skeletal Proteins – And Other Gruesome Forensic Facts of Life

A photomontage showing a body outline, "Do Not Cross" yellow police tape, and a magnifier focused on the word "Forensics". The picture also lists the following forensic ways to estimate the time of death - Wait: Determine the time of death; Rigor mortis; Decomposition; Forensic Entomology; Succession on corpses; Other decomposers.
Estimating the Time of Death

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

Seeing the Light Fantastic – Particles, Waves and All

This seminal photograph shows, for the first time, light in all its beauty, simultaneously seen as a wave and as a particle.
Light in All its Beauty

Taking a radically different experimental approach, EPFL scientists were able to take the first ever snapshot of light behaving simultaneously both as a wave AND as a stream of particles.  You need light to take a photograph.  But how do you take a photograph of light?

Continue reading Seeing the Light Fantastic – Particles, Waves and All

Just a Second…

A close-up photograph of an analog clock showing the hands just reaching the hour.
What Does a Second Look Like?

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…

Physics at 13 TeV – Cranking Up the LHC

A composite picture showing inside the underground tunnel at CERN, and a small portion of the giant particle accelerator in artificial colours, with the words 13 TeV superimposed on it. Image: NaturPhilosophie
A Vernesque Feat of Human Engineering

Deep down, in huge subterranean caverns… Underneath the Franco-Swiss border… 300 feet underground… lies a beast of unprecedented power… and mystery.  The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that man summons to  explore the uncharted corners of the sub-atomic realm…  After two years of a deep slumber, the mighty beast has awoken…

Continue reading Physics at 13 TeV – Cranking Up the LHC

El Niño – Return of the ‘Enfant Terrible’

A composite picture showing a heat map of the Earth, highlighting the location of the temperature anomaly in the southern hemisphere, with superimposed on it the face of a young child having a tantrum. Image: NaturPhilosophie
El Niño: A Temperature Anomaly

Still in its early stages, El Niño has the potential to cause extreme and even devastating weather around the World.  According to climate graphs, we have reached a 0.6 value for the ENSO.  It’s a 60% probability.  El Niño is now officially back.

Continue reading El Niño – Return of the ‘Enfant Terrible’

Zeno’s Paradoxes or What Happened When Achilles and the Hare Decided to Outfox the Legendary Tortoise

A drawing showing Greek champion Achilles chasing the hare and the tortoise in a race to the finish, with the legendary tortoise in the lead.
Wacky Races

How could the humble Tortoise ever beat legendary Greek champion, Achilles, in a race to the finish?  And what about that time when the champion of the animal kingdom simply ridiculed his next-door neighbour aka the Hare?

Continue reading Zeno’s Paradoxes or What Happened When Achilles and the Hare Decided to Outfox the Legendary Tortoise

Space-Age Rocket

A photomontage showing the American space shuttle taking off over a background of roquette salad, hence "Space-Age Rocket".
Salad Growing… in Space?

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 World Outside My Window… What a Window!!

What a World!!

Amazing timelapse footage of the Earth (including aurorae, lightning and city lights) as seen from the International Space Station.  Just mesmerizing…

Continue reading The World Outside My Window… What a Window!!

All Alone in the Night…

Late O’ Clock at Night

It’s late o’clock at night. All alone in the night? Enjoy this amazing time footage flyover of the Earth from the International Space Station. Absolutely uplifting… Positively enthralling…

Continue reading All Alone in the Night…