Insights

Chachani mountain

January 8, 2019
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission snapped this image of the Chachani mountain in Peru. Standing at over 6000m, Chachani is the tallest of the mountains near the Peruvian city of Arequipa.

Addressing the helium shortage

January 8, 2019
The helium shortage, party balloons and a revolutionary energy source – all the perfect ingredients for New Year knees-up say Russ Swan… We're in the full swing of party season...

Seasonal kissing and unfortunate penguins

January 7, 2019
So that’s it then. That was the season to be jolly, and now the thick grey coat of January threatens to envelop our mood.  But, if you’ll excuse our stubbornness,...

New Year tips for last minute presentations

January 7, 2019
Forget that resolution to start completing tasks well in advance – just get really good at doing them last minute says Dr Matthew Partridge as he gives us his New...

Perfecting the inside job

January 6, 2019
An industrial fellowship helped Jonathan Vince explore how to avoid the grim side-effects of traditional cancer treatment using microspheres and internal radiation   Cancer. It’s the one of the few words which...

Taking the wider view

January 3, 2019
The ‘quality’ of a research paper is a tricky thing to quantify – journal impact factors and citations have gone some way to do this, but they don’t take into...

Reaching the Government’s R&D target

December 18, 2018
In the 2017 General Election campaign, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats all made manifesto pledges to increase R&D intensity in the UK. The Tories set a target to...

A strange sequence of events

December 12, 2018
An enigmatic interstellar visitor, a grand failure of our space-based instruments and ever-gathering conspiracy theorists… Russ Swan considers a peculiar series of events There's something odd going on, and careful...

The Colours of Iron

December 11, 2018
'The Colours of Iron' (Lochaber, Scotland) by Ursula Lawrence took the third place) in the Geological society's 2018 Earth Science Week photography competition, 'Earth Science in our Lives.'

Science is a very human endeavor

December 6, 2018
Scientists are a hard working bunch. Very hard working in fact – but even you need time to consider other parts of your life. After all, says Matthew Partridge, science...

Clowning around with cynicism

November 29, 2018
Cynicism is no stranger to us here on the Science light desk. Indeed it has become a close and valued ally. A comforting mental overcoat, arming us for the oh-so-smug...

A right royal institution: Professor Aoife McLysaght

November 29, 2018
This year, The Royal Institution Christmas lectures will, for the first time in its 194-year history, feature not one but two lecturers. Accompanying Professor Alice Roberts for her Who am...

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