This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features a wide-ranging interview with Dave Newbold, who is Executive Director, National Laboratories Science and Technologies for the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Newbold spent two decades as an experimental particle physicist before joining the STFC. I spoke to him at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, which is home to the STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. This includes the Diamond Light Source synchrotron; the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source; and the Central Laser Facility. The STFC also operates major facilities at Daresbury in Cheshire and the Boulby Underground…
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This Android Hopes You’ll Swipe Right Requiem for the Most Famous Drag King of Our Lifetimes Despite the urban legends she lived to a ripe old age of 15— a comfortable retirement in Santa Clarita, long walks on the beach, lazing in the sun, beloved, after traversing two star-studded decades with the likes of Reese Witherspoon and digitally lipsyncing to ethnic stereotypes of which she had no real means to understand. Cast as Taco Bell Chihuahua’s Girlfriend she quickly proved herself too butch, usurping the starring role with her action hero stunts and monster movie one-liners, cheap spanglish catch-phrases oft…
Back in high school in the 1990s, I was taught history with a capital “H,” the kind of history that focused on a single narrative. It was a view of history that revealed only the narrowest strip of the past, a thin swath of experience from which many people, places, and ideas were excluded. Microhistories are a type of nonfiction that looks at history through the lens of a single object or substance. They show us how ubiquitous, everyday objects—the kinds many of us never think twice about—are actually the physical culmination of centuries of experimentation, violent clashes between some…
Warning signs: Researchers developed a wearable wrist-worn device that uses laser speckle imaging to catch early signs of postpartum haemorrhage. (Courtesy: Francesca Bonetta-Misteli, Washington University in St. Louis) A new wearable imaging device that monitors changes in blood flow in a patient’s hands, feet or arms could be used as an early warning system for postpartum haemorrhage – a relatively common complication of childbirth that accounts for over 30% of maternal deaths each year. The laser-based sensor, which has been successfully tested in simulated tissues and in pigs, is now being trialled in healthy human volunteers. Postpartum haemorrhage is the…
Jami Nakamura Lin begins with a warning: “In the presence of a story—if the story is a good one—time collapses.” This is precisely what she achieves in a genre-bending memoir that collapses past and present, personal and mythical. The Night Parade begins with her attempts to trace the origins of her bipolar disorder that first manifested in her inexplicable childhood rage. Despite her teacher’s suggestion of therapy, her father insists she is not depressed, until she experiences a major depressive episode at 17. But it’s not until Lin’s suicide attempt soon after—an event that amplifies the ripple effects of her…
It was a stormy summer day, dead in the middle of August, with lightning sheeting the sky and a deep underwater gloom pervading the parking deck. My three-year-old had fallen asleep in his car seat on our way to the children’s museum, and I could hardly believe my luck: a whole hour to spend on my dumb internet routines. My publisher’s sales portal updates in massive tranches every few (or two) weeks, so naturally I check it every day. And here was an update—in fact, a huge leap, with total unit sales topping 10,000 for the very first time. I…
Moiya McTier describes her journey from academic research in astrophysics, to setting up her own science communication business Road less travelled Moiya McTier has combined her passions to create a varied and stimulating career.(Courtesy: Arin Sang-Urai) As a kid, I dreamt about becoming a professional athlete, a famous artist, or maybe the US President. I wanted to solve the mystery of the electron’s quantum leap, or be the world’s leading expert in Arthurian legend. So far, I have achieved none of these dreams – but instead I find myself in the coolest career I could possibly imagine. In fact, I…
Who is responsible for maintaining family lore? In Company, Shannon Sanders introduces—and repeatedly reintroduces—readers to the Collinses, a Black family with roots in D.C. and Atlantic City. Sanders, a master of character, makes every individual distinctive and recognizable even as they clearly belong to a whole, bound by shared history, values, and challenges. In “The Good, Good Men,” two adult sons try, for better or worse, to fulfill their presumed filial duties; in “La Belle Hottentote,” four nieces fill in for an absentee daughter; and in “Company,” an aunt struggles to live up to family standards of hospitality. By presenting…
“Night of the Caregiver†starring Natalie Denise Sperl and The Exorcist’s Eileen Dietz is now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime and Vudu, and definitely provides chills and thrills for all horror movie enthusiasts. Synopsis: Hospice nurse Julia Rowe is hired to be caregiver for Lillian Gresham, who lives in an isolated house in a remote area. Although she is terminally ill, the elderly Lillian is a cordial and sweet lady. However, as the night goes on, Julia suspects something demonic is also dwelling in the house causing she and Lillian to be in grave danger… Natalie Denise Sperl is an…
A Black Belt in Karate Doesn’t Make a Fair Father Salar Abdoh Share article An excerpt from A Nearby Country Called Love by Salar Abdoh He couldn’t bear going back to the apartment just yet. The apartment of the dead. When they’d been much younger he had shared the big bedroom with his older brother while their father took the small one in the back for himself. Issa recalled the bouts of barely controlled rage and weeping that ensued each time their old man thought his firstborn was not manly enough. It was a dance of endless humiliation between the…
Follow the flow: Graphs showing the smooth flow of photocurrent streamlines around a microscopic structure shaped like an aeroplane wing. This electrofoil (top left) makes it possible to contort, compress and expand photocurrent streamlines in the same way that aeroplane wings (shown in silhouettes at right) contort, compress and expand the flow of air. (Courtesy: UCR/QMO Lab) Taking inspiration from the flow of air around aeroplane wings, researchers in the US have imaged photoexcited electrons flowing around sharp bends for the first time. Because such bends are often found in integrated optoelectronic circuits, observing the electrons’ “streamlines†could lead to…
The source of the sound Researchers find that the Kortokoff sounds heard through a stethoscope may not be sound waves at all. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Elle Aon) Tap, tap, tap… Swish, swish… Tap, tap… Whoooo… Silence. The Korotkoff sounds heard through a stethoscope are routine in non-invasive clinical blood pressure measurement. For over a century since the sounds were discovered, however, scientists have debated what causes them. Are there cavitation bubbles in the brachial artery? A “water hammer†type phenomenon? Most posited theories looked toward a source of sound inside the arteries and related to blood flow. But perhaps Korotkoff sounds aren’t…
Cataclysmic collision: It is thought that ‘rapid neutron-capture processes’ that occur during a neutron star merger could be responsible for producing heavy elements (courtesy: NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet) Physicists in Japan and Lithuania have found evidence that tellurium is produced in neutron star mergers. Their findings bolster the idea that neutron star mergers are responsible for most of the heavy elements in the universe. The synthesis of heavy nuclei – those heavier than silver – is described by a set of nuclear reaction know as the “r-process†or rapid neutron-capture process. First proposed in 1957, it occurs in an environment…
Venezuela, my home country, was once one of the richest countries in Latin America due to the discovery of oil at the start of the last century. Today, Venezuela is in political and economic turmoil with a mass exodus of more than 7 million. As I wrote my new memoir, Motherland about the fragile concept of home and my complicated relationship to my family and to Venezuela, there were several books that took me back on a quest to understand where we came from as a country. The horrific conditions in Venezuela over the last several years sometimes made us…
The Masquerade of the Red Death is the one night every year where we gather in Brooklyn, celebrate with our community, and raise funds to support our work. It is also the night the spirit of our party patron saint Edgar Allan Poe is strongest, and the spooky vibes reach their peak! This year, our friends, readers, writers, and beloved colleagues from the literary sphere showed up and showed out, fabulously decked in horns, feathers, and most thematically, many stunning and creative masks. Themed cocktails were sipped, tail-feathers were shaken, and party-goers ended the night with an armload of free books!…
Engineering icons: a small section of the new Tube map. (Courtesy: Transport for London) Perhaps the most iconic map ever is Harry Beck’s depiction of the London Underground, which first appeared in the 1930s. Now, Transport for London (TfL) – which runs the Underground – has partnered with the Royal Academy of Engineering to create a Tube-themed map that depicts famous people in the history of engineering. Created to celebrate National Engineering Day on 1 November, the entire map can be viewed here. The American artist Jackson Pollock was famous for abstract paintings made by dripping paint onto canvasses. It…
“The world here beats faster than a hummingbird’s wings,” writes Alexandra Chang in her new collection Tomb Sweeping. Chang, the author of Days of Distraction and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 recipient, writes poignantly about tenuous connection. In these stories, a wealthy housewife runs a gambling ring in Zheijiang, a young woman attends the living funeral of a family friend, someone “drinks himself into a dedicated madness,” two friends become further alienated despite attempts to reunite, a brother disappears during Japanese occupation and the Sook Ching. Chang is curious about “the power of angry women” among “men of…
The Mug Shot: Look straight ahead and contemplate the lousy Kirkus review you’re sure to get. The Talk Show Host: Place one hand under your chin and imagine listening to someone else, something you rarely do as a writer. The Orgasm: Throw your head back and grin ecstatically after ordering a box of your favorite gel pens. The West Nile: Sit at a scenic outdoor table at dusk, notebook open in front of you. If you contract the virus at least your mother will never have to read your memoir. The James Dean: Turn up the collar on your leather…