Congratulations to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for winning the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on graphene. You will have read about it here because this blog is at the cutting edge of science innovation! Much has been made of the fact that they came to their discovery by ‘playing’ with sellotape and …
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Category:Science News
A Bloke In A Hat…
I expect you recognise the gentleman in the picture above. He designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Paddington Station and the SS Great Britain; the first all iron, propeller-driven steam ship. At the end of last month the results of a survey were published in which people from non-scientific backgrounds were asked to name famous scientists. …
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Rick Perry…
Rick Perry was governor of Texas for fourteen years and ran for US President in 2012 and 2016. I wrote about him when I wrote about how Donald Trump could never be President of the United States! One of his main policies in 2012 was that he was going to close down the three branches …
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RI Christmas Lectures…
I don’t really watch TV now but I used to love the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on the BBC. Each year a different professional scientist is asked to present three one hour lectures on their particular area of expertise. It is aimed at children but doesn’t talk down to its audience teaches about real science. …
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U.S. President…
I was somewhat alarmed to read this morning the news that Donald Trump is the front-runner in the race for nomination to lead the Republican Party in the next US presidential election. As things stand he has about twice the number of votes of his nearest rival. He is not enjoying the kind of dominance that …
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Covid-19…
Covid-19 is the condition caused by the current coronavirus outbreak; a virus more properly called SARS-CoV-2. A coronavirus is a type of virus that can cause disease in mammals and birds. These are usually mild respiratory tract infections such as the common cold. There are currently no vaccines to prevent human coronavirus infections. They can …
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Antibiotics…
Bacteria are single-celled organisms, called prokaryotes because they have no nucleus, as opposed to eukaryotic cells which do have a nucleus. They were probably amongst the first living things to evolve on Earth and can now be found in almost every possible planetary niche from hot springs to radioactive waste. Some bacteria can photosynthesise, others …
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Even More Good Carbon News…
In 2009 I wrote a post called Good Carbon News about graphene; an allotrope of carbon. Allotrope means an element in more than one physical form e.g. carbon can be in the form of graphite, diamond or graphene. I go into more detail in the 2009 article which is worth a read. Graphene is in …
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Prelude…
You may have seen news items about Shell’s Prelude LNG ship – the largest sea-going vessel of all time. I like the graphic above that shows it in contrast to the Sydney Opera House – the ship is the orange shape at the back! It is designed to be a floating platform for extracting natural gas (methane) …
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EM Drive…
. NASA has recently announced that their research team has confirmed that the EM drive described above, when tested in a near vacuum, produced thrust. . The graph shows their raw data with error bars and the dotted line is their best fit line to show how the thrust in micro-newton (μN) is plotted against …
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