A Cloud EncyclopaediaSince its first publication in 1896, the International Cloud Atlas has become an important reference tool for people working in meteorological services, aviation and shipping.
Continue reading Cloud Atlas – A Manual on the Observation of Clouds and Other Meteors
Arecibo – What a Dish!The Arecibo observatory is a very large radio telescope located in Puerto Rico. In 1974, astronomers used it to broadcast a message into outer space intended to demonstrate human intelligence. Why are we so interested in finding intelligence in the stars, and yet so deaf to the many species who manifest it here on Earth?
Continue reading Arecibo and the Great Silence – Where We Talk About a Parrot Named Alex
Big Data is the new Big BrotherThe emergence of Big Data has meant that everything we do online leaves digital traces. “Big data” is fairly new. It’s huge and it’s scary – very scary. This revolutionary approach to data-driven communications is said to have played an integral part in Brexit “Leave” campaign and U.S. president Donald Trump’s extraordinary win. Continue reading Psychometrics and “Big Data” – Who Do They Think You Are?
The Real X-FilesAs the X-Files series enjoy a revival on TV, the American spy agency has decided to place thousands of declassified documents detailing government research into UFOs on its website. The CIA documents also confirm the reality of humans with ‘Special Abilities’ able to do seemingly impossible things. Continue reading CIA Releases “X-Files”
Home WorldWe start the new year with this photograph of the Earth and its Moon, taken from Mars. Continue reading The Earth, as Seen from Mars
You Spin Me Right Round…Just over a century ago, Einstein proposed the existence of waves in the spacetime continuum – the logical deduction from his Theory of General Relativity. In February 2016, scientists finally announced the detection of those “ripples” in gravity, using the technique of laser interferometry. Continue reading 2016: Another Year in Cutting Edge Science
Meat and Potato Pie in the SkyA meat and potato pie has been attached to a weather balloon, and sent “into space”… Continue reading Pie in the Sky
About SarinSarin is a deadly compound. Colourless, odourless, and fatal even at low concentrations. A new drug designed to fight against the deadly effects of organophosphorous nerve agents, like sarin, is in sight. Continue reading Compound Interest: An Antidote to Sarin
Improving on Nature’s PhotosynthesisAgronomic engineers have managed to improve upon one the most important biological process on the planet – photosynthesis. The increased yield in crop could be as much as 15%. Continue reading Feeding of the Nine Billion – The Future of Photosynthesis and Increased Crop Productivity
Visualizing Dynamic EarthWe live on the ever-changing planetary surface of Earth. Now, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s “Eruptions, Earthquakes, & Emissions” (“E3”) web application reveals a time-lapse animation of the data held on volcanic eruptions and quakes on Earth since 1960. The dynamic Earth at one glance!
Continue reading Fifty Years of Turmoil in One Minute – The Recent Living Respiring Dynamic Earth
What lies 5,000 metres below the sea?It’s cold down there. Icy cold. It’s dark. Pitch black, in fact. And the crushing pressures make the deepest parts of the oceans into some of the most hostile places on our planet. Continue reading Sailing the Lower Midnight… – The Uncharted Frontier of Modern Deep Sea Exploration
What is Wind?It comes at you as a breeze. As a gust. As a gale. Or in the scariest of situations as a hurricane or a tornado with wind speeds of up to 400 kilometres an hour. But what is wind?
Continue reading Global Winds and the Coriolis Effect – The Ever Changing Atmospheric System
Welcome to Scotland’s Jurassic ParkWelcome to Jurassic Skye! While dinosaurs might be long dead and no threat to puny humans, the rich fossil record of the Scottish island of Skye – the “Misty Isle” – has provided palaeontologists with important clues to the lives of prehistoric predators and their preys. Continue reading Fantastic Beasts of the “Misty Isle” – Welcome to Jurassic Skye!
A New Epoch has BegunThe term ‘Anthropocene’ has entered scientific literature as an expression of the fundamental environmental change caused to planet Earth by humankind, despite not being a formally defined geological unit within the geological time scale. The hunt is on for the “golden spike” – a marker for future researchers to point to in millions of years and identify as the geological start of the Anthropocene epoch. Continue reading Human versus Nature – The Golden Spike of the Anthropocene
A revolution in the treatment and understanding of clinical depression may be looming. And specialists are already talking about one of the strongest discoveries in psychiatry for the past two decades. For the 350 million people who suffer from the illness worldwide, this could potentially mean light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Continue reading Looking on the Bright Side of Clinical Depression
What is Your Poison of Choice?Be honest. We all have one. What’s your poison? Booze, tobacco, prescription drugs… or something a little more exotic? Cannabis is a controversial plant, regarded by many as a godsend. If Carlsberg made a ‘erb… Continue reading Panacea Nostrum – The Forensic Toxicology of Cannabis
Finding Gems in LondonThe Evelyn tables are the oldest known anatomical preparations in Europe – a manner of human herbarium – showcased at a scarcely visited location in the very heart of London. Continue reading The Evelyn Tables – Musings on Leoni d’Este’s Human Herbarium
Signals and PerceptionPrior to the discovery of nociceptors in 1906, scientists believed that animals were like mechanical devices that transformed the energy of sensory stimuli into motor responses. Pain is one of those stimulated reactions, but it is unlike other sensations. What is the purpose of pain? Continue reading Ouch!! #$@*!! – We Take a Quick Look at the Neuro-Physics of Pain
Meet LISA!Erm…No. Not Mona Lisa! (Rolls eyes.) Think again!! This is LISA – the Lisa Pathfinder satellite, the key element for a grand new project: a space-based gravitational observatory. Continue reading Hunting Ripples in the Fabric of Space-Time – The Trials and Tribulations of LISA
They are made from assemblies of multiple elements fashioned from composite materials, like metals or plastics. And they promise to revolutionise the way we look at things. Continue reading Optically Brilliant Metamaterials
Evil as an Evolutionary AdvantageThere is a side of us that is not unique to our own species. Evil. Why? How did it start? The first time. Asking why evil came into existence is a valid question. Evil behaviours are categorised into four distinct groups. Of course, it gets pretty dark. But what is “Evil”? Continue reading Breaking Bad – The Evolutionary Perspective of Evil
“It’s Life! But Not as We Know it…”There is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms. From an all-physical point of view, the former tend to be so much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat. At MIT, Jeremy England derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity. Continue reading A Theory of Life… The Physics of Cells and Macroscopic Irreversibility
Scrolling Back the Past at HerculaneumOnce 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
Building the WorldMost of us are familiar with the idea that our bodies need calcium. And calcium is indeed the key element in our bones. Calcium is the most abundant metal in the human body – and those of animals too. The fifth most abundant element on Earth and our World’s chosen architectural building block. Yes, calcium is a metal. Do we really appreciate its true value? Continue reading Yes, Calcium is a Metal!
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