The warmth on your face, the scenic view outside – such delights are delivered to you by countless photons from the sun. But believe it or not, these photons move in much the same way as an inebriated…
How will we know Iran will keep its side of the deal?
Otto Schade/garryknight
You may have seen yesterday that Iran has agreed to scale back its nuclear program for six months after two years of economic sanctions in an effort to halt, or at least alter the course of, its nuclear…
Would physics be “far more interesting” if the Higgs boson had not been found? Stephen Hawking thinks so. He made this bold claim, possibly with his tongue slightly in his cheek, at the opening of a new…
Nature yields hidden fruits – beautiful patterns and basic relations that make our world. These and the adventure of the human mind in discovering them seem to me a great unharvested source of wonder for…
Not just a source of food: this river could help doctors save lives.
julien_harnies
Suzie Sheehy, Science and Technology Facilities Council
Pneumonia kills more children worldwide than malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis combined. This is surprising given that treatment for pneumonia is relatively simple. In rich countries survival rates are very…
Dung beetles love the Milky Way because they use it for navigation. No, seriously they do.
mattvisser
This year’s Ig Nobel prizes were awarded on September 12 at a meeting of nerds at Harvard University. The prizes are given for genuine scientific research that “first makes people laugh and then makes…
The science of spin bowling yields some interesting – and practical – results.
Wallula Junction
After the first day of the third Ashes test cricket match between England and Australia it may be a good time to consider how spin bowling might affect the outcome of the series - and how science can be…
Developing a Theory of Everything is physics’ Holy Grail. So could it have been completed in recent weeks? And by an outsider, working alone? American mathematical physicist-turned-hedge-fund-consultant…
The Large Hadron Collider has temporarily shut down, but will return stronger than ever.
CERN
The lord of the particle accelerator, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), went out of particle collision business for almost two years as of late last week. For particle physicists, Valentine’s Day 2013…
Scientist Laurence Krauss has said the philosophy of science is hard to justify.
World Economic Forum/Flickr
I really shouldn’t let myself watch Q&A. Don’t get me wrong, the ABC’s flagship weekly panel show is usually compelling viewing. But after just a few minutes I end up with the systolic blood pressure…
The Large Hadron Collider has been used to find out what matter is fundamentally made of, and how the universe was created.
EPA/Martial Triezzini
One of humanity’s eternal questions surrounds what we are fundamentally made of. Many ancient philosophies believed in a set of classical elements: from water, air, fire and earth of ancient Greeks; to…
Some of the isotopes we find here on Earth were created in supernova explosions like this one.
NASA
If you’ve ever studied a periodic table of the elements (see below), you’re probably already aware that this table reveals a great deal about the chemical properties of the atoms that make up our world…
Sometimes the juiciest treats come in small packages.
Dylan Parker
Most people outside the esoteric worlds of little-science physics (aka quantum mechanics) and big-science physics (aka cosmology) will at some point realise both worlds fly in the face of intuition. Why…
The cobalt hues of the sky above are thanks to all manner of molecules in the air.
djking
A young child looked up in the sky, And said, “It’s so blue, Mum, but why?” You see, blue scatters more, (There’s this power of 4), So it rarely comes straight to your eye. – Author unknown Most of what…
Everything we see around us could be little more than bits in a giant supercomputer.
petertandlund
As a cosmologist, I often carry around a universe or two in my pocket. Not entire, infinitely large universes, but maybe a few billion light years or so across. Enough to be interesting. Of course, these…
There are many ways physical laws can be exploited to trick cameras, detectors and eyes.
Niels Linneberg
What do Casper the Friendly Ghost, Harry Potter and H.G Wells’ Griffin all have in common? The answer, of course, is “the ability to become invisible”. And these three characters weren’t the first to have…
Just on a year ago my colleagues and I announced our discovery that carbon nanotube yarns could be made to twist and rotate at great speeds when electrically stimulated. In this way we had created “artificial…