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Not So Elementary (the Cosmos, That Is)

Recently there are appeared a paper showing how Physics - Iron–Helium Compounds Form Under...

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?

...

Betelgeuse, Gamow, and a Big Red Horse

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

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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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Has A Fish ‘Broken’ A Law Of Physics?

Has A Fish ‘Broken’ A Law Of Physics?

Nov 05 2012 | comment(s)

How a fish ‘broke’ a law of physics


... says a press release from Bristol University.

An Alimentary Voyage

An Alimentary Voyage

Nov 01 2012 | comment(s)

Yesterday evening, on BBC4 Television, I watched a repeat of Guts: The Strange and Wonderful World of the Human Stomach. 


TV presenter Michael Mosley was the main exhibit in a public experiment at the Science Museum in London, exploring the inside story of the human digestive system.  He swallowed a mini camera in a pill that took photographs three times a second as it passed through his gut. 

What hasn’t changed since 1969?

What hasn’t changed since 1969?

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

Neil Armstrong changed the way we think of ourselves – but, oddly, not the way we think of the Moon, writes Daniel Hannan on Telegraph Blogs.

But what I particularly like is the comment by one Maria Kay:
I've toured the USS Hornet, now retired in Alameda, Calif. (That is the aircraft carrier that fished the Apollo 11 capsule out of the ocean.) There is a small museum of moonshot memorabilia stored on board.
Plants muscling in?

Plants muscling in?

Aug 22 2012 | comment(s)

Do plants have muscles?  Strictly speaking, no, but time-lapse photography shows that they can be quite thuggish in behaviour.

Sailing on the Jurassic Coast

Sailing on the Jurassic Coast

Aug 17 2012 | comment(s)

The sailing event of the recent 2012 London Olympics were held at Weymouth, half-way along Dorset and East Devon’s famous Jurassic Coast.  Thinks:


Sources: Sailing picture: goc2012.culture.gov.uk; Plesiosaur LHL Digital Collections