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Carbon — to capture or not to capture

This came up on 2nd November 2024 (give or take a day), a broadcaster objecting to a carbon capture...

The Azolla Event: when is a fern not a fern?

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Betelgeuse, Gamow, and a Big Red Horse

There has been a lot of talk recently of Betelgeuse possibly going supernova this century or not...

Climate Change, the Walrus and the Carpenter

I have recently watched two videos on climate change by Sabine Hossenfelder.  The first one...

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Robert H OlleyRSS Feed of this column.

Until recently, I worked in the Polymer Physics Group of the Physics Department at the University of Reading.

I would describe myself as a Polymer Morphologist. I am not an astronaut,

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Beetroot Juice for Stamina!

Beetroot Juice for Stamina!

May 10 2010 | comment(s)

I saw it first on The One Show!   Beetroot juice boosts stamina, new study shows, as the University of Exeter says in a press release, the gist of which is as follows:
 
Company Transfer Radiation

Company Transfer Radiation

May 07 2010 | comment(s)

Our University’s former Safety-Office-in-Chief, who retired about ten years ago, had a line in horror stories while presenting training lectures.  One of his “things” was always radiation checking a new piece of equipment before releasing it for use.
Mathematics For Amphibians

Mathematics For Amphibians

May 03 2010 | comment(s)

One of the disappointments experienced by most mathematics students is that they never get a course in mathematics. They get courses in calculus, algebra, topology, and so on, but the division of labor in teaching seems to prevent these different topics from being combined into a whole. In fact, some of the most important and natural questions are stifled because they fall on the wrong side of topic boundary lines. Algebraists do not discuss the fundamental theorem of algebra because “that’s analysis” and analysts do not discuss Riemann surfaces because “that’s topology,” for example.
Van de, Van der ...?

Van de, Van der ...?

Apr 26 2010 | comment(s)

One thing I learned from my recent trip to DESY was the proper name for a certain type of electrostatic generator[1].  Like many Brits, I had somehow got it into my head that it was called a Van der Graaf, but in fact it was invented by the American physicist Robert Jemison Van de Graaff.  In order to check this out, I went to Dutch Wikipedia and learned that: 
To DORIS@DESY

To DORIS@DESY

Apr 21 2010 | comment(s)

Well, who exactly is DORIS?  “She” is actually the first Doppel-Ring-Speicher (which translates neatly into English as “Double-Ring Storage”) at DESY, the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron in Hamburg.  It’s not the only one; the more recent PETRA (Positron-Elektron-Tandem-Ring-Anlage) and HERA (Hadron-Elektron-Ring-Anlage) are both storage rings.  
 
Xenon For Baby

Xenon For Baby

Apr 13 2010 | comment(s)

Brain damage at birth is a horrible thing to happen to a baby.  Brain cells are very vulnerable to hypoxic / ischemic damage (the latter term referring to restricted blood supply), which makes birth a dangerous time.  Therefore, it was cheering to read a BBC news item

First baby given xenon gas to prevent brain injury

which led me to the Bristol University press release First newborn receives xenon gas in bid to prevent brain injury which begins