In the classical world of materials science, metals are well-behaved. Their electrons follow predictable rules, their resistivity scales with temperature in a quadratic fashion, and their behaviour is neatly captured by Fermi liquid theory. But in the quantum realm…
Continue reading Seriously Strange Metals: The Quantum Rebels of Condensed Matter Physics
A Norwegian valley. Strange lights observed by many witnesses. It has been called “Norway’s Roswell”. But what makes the remote valley of Hessdalen so different from other locations?
Continue reading Eliminating the Impossible – The Complex Electro-Chemistry Behind the Hessdalen Lights
The Hessdalen Valley of Norway. Just 15 kilometres across. Low population density. But why is there a blue box perched high up on the hillside, with cameras covering the valley? What’s going on in this secluded valley?!
Continue reading Identifying the Unidentified – The Hessdalen Light Phenomenon, Norway
North east of Ukraine, close to the Russian border, is the site of the Duga radar, also known during the 70s and 80s as the Woodpecker – one of the most extraordinary engineering structures ever built.
Continue reading The Brief Flight of the Russian Woodpecker Over The Horizon – And More About Phased Array Radars…
Greifswald, Northeastern Germany, 2016. Physicists at the Max Planck Institute have been racing to find a way of producing sustainable, clean energy with a stable nuclear fusion reactor. The challenge? Re-creating the Sun’s powerhouse on a much, much smaller scale.
Continue reading Engineering A Star – Nuclear Fusion, Tokamaks and Stellarators
The very latest technology in scanning and 3D printing is now providing vital clues and evidence in murder. And as it happened, scientists can now ascertain that World famous flightless extinct bird… the Dodo… died… AFTER BEING SHOT… in the back of the head…
Continue reading Digital Forensics and The Case of the Dead Dodo
CERN’s LHCb collaboration has announced the discovery of a new “charming” particle, thought to be instrumental to the strong force – the Xi-cc++. Another particle. So…?
Continue reading Charming New Particle Xi-cc++ Discovered at CERN
Once a chic resort on the Bay of Naples, Herculaneum was favoured by the finest of Roman’s elite society, who spent the hot Italian summers there… until a catastrophe struck one afternoon in 79 AD. The Villa dei Papiri, excavated centuries later, was found to contain the only library to have survived from the Classical World – a unique cultural treasure, which the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly destroyed, and yet preserved all at once. How do you read what is essentially a charred book?
Continue reading Between the Lines of the Herculaneum Papyri using X-Ray Imaging Techniques
You know how when you throw a rock into a pool, that makes ripples in the water? And how Einstein once upon a time predicted that the very mass of stars and planets should warp spacetime? Although we have had a justified inkling that Einstein was right for quite some time, we had never before detected such a phenomenon. Until THIS happened…
Continue reading The Discovery of Gravitational Waves – Merging Black Holes and Advanced LIGO
There is a place on Earth where lightning storms last forever. We are at Catatumbo, in Venezuela. And this year, Catatumbo was approved for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records, as the place in the World with the most lightning bolts per square kilometre each year at 250. What causes such a powerful storm to develop in the same spot, up to 300 nights a year?
Continue reading The Everlasting Storm of Catatumbo, Venezuela