Nobel Prize summary 2019

Every year, the Nobel Prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics are presented. Each is considered the field’s most prestigious award, celebrating the greatest contributions made by living people to modern society. Here is my summary of the Nobel Prize winners of 2019. Physics – Michel Mayor, Didier Queloz & James Peebles Exoplanets … Continue reading Nobel Prize summary 2019 →

Shadow of the vampire star

Stars are massive – even the smallest are far larger than Earth. That doesn’t stop them from trying to get bigger, though, and astronomers have just discovered one that’s managed exactly that. A binary system is when two stars orbit around each other. Generally, they don’t directly interact, but occasionally one will steal material from … Continue reading Shadow of the vampire star →

Eyes light up with radiation therapy

For years, cancer patients have reported seeing flashes of light during radiation therapy. After careful observation, scientists have caught this light on camera, and discovered what causes it. Cherenkov radiation is a type of light caused by charged particles (such as electrons) travelling through a material at high speed. This effect is the reason that … Continue reading Eyes light up with radiation therapy →

Upcycling goes down in history

The word ‘upcycling’ was invented in the 1990s to describe reusing old items in new ways, instead of throwing them out. However, it turns out upcycling has been done for a lot longer than this – three thousand years longer. Archaeologists have spent the last seventeen years excavating an ancient manufacturing site called Saruq al-Hadid … Continue reading Upcycling goes down in history →

Ginkgo trees: Forever young

All living things have a life cycle: they’re born, they age and eventually they die. At least, most living things follow this pattern. Ginkgo trees don’t suffer from old age, which means they may be able to live forever. Chinese researchers studied a group of trees ranging between three and 667 years old. They found … Continue reading Ginkgo trees: Forever young →

The curious case of the three-tailed lizard

Imagine being able to regrow lost body parts. This sounds useful until it goes wrong: what happens if you grow an extra part you don’t need? This is what happened to a lizard I found last year - it had three tails. The lizard was a Ragged Snake-eyed Skink (Cryptoblepharus pannosus) that lived near my … Continue reading The curious case of the three-tailed lizard →