Physical Sciences & Mathematics

Professor Vassilis Angelopoulos – From THEMIS to ELFIN: Exploring Near Earth Space

Dr Vassilis Angelopoulos and his colleagues at the UCLA Earth Planetary and Space Sciences Department in California study the interaction of solar radiation with the Earth’s magnetosphere using multiple NASA research satellites. Their aim is to protect our...

Dr Jian Du-Caines – Protecting the Earth by Predicting Space Weather

Atmospheric physicist Dr Jian Du-Caines at the University of Louisville and her colleagues explore the interactions between Earth’s atmosphere and near Earth space to better predict space weather that can adversely affect life on Earth. Everyone Talks About the...

Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Honor Society

Founded in 1886 at Cornell University, Sigma Xi is an international community of scientists and engineers dedicated to promoting excellence in research, enhancing public engagement with science, and fostering the next generation of researchers. Here, we have had the...

Soapbox Science

Soapbox Science was founded as a public outreach platform for promoting women scientists and their research. Now in its seventh year, Soapbox Science takes female scientists out of the lab and onto the streets, to talk to the passing, unsuspecting public about...

The European Southern Observatory

The European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organisation that facilitates astronomy and astrophysics research. Since its creation in 1962, ESO has provided scientists with the world’s most powerful ground-based telescopes in its host state of...

Dr Scott Hsu and Dr F. Douglas Witherspoon – Plasma guns fire into the race for fusion

Dr. Scott Hsu is a fusion physics research scientist interested in obtaining cost efficient, clean energy for the world. His work, pursued with Dr. F. Douglas Witherspoon and others, focuses on plasma-implosion research for an alternate-fusion approach. Dissected view...

Dr Edward Kansa – Computational Method Cures The Curse Of Dimensionality

Dr Edward Kansa, winner of a George Green medal, has worked for decades on a fuller application of smooth radial basis functions with wide applicability in engineering, computer science, and physics – the powerful Kansa method. The Kansa method for engineers...

The Square Kilometre Array: The World’s Largest Radio Telescope

Comprising thousands of radio dishes and up to a million antennae, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the world’s largest radio telescope. Referred to as the next generation of radio telescope, this instrument will be tens of times more sensitive and hundreds of...

Kimberly Kowal Arcand – Somewhere, Outside The Rainbow

NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory orbits high above the earth, beaming back images of the high-energy universe impossible to obtain from the ground. Bringing this data to the world is Kimberly Arcand, Visualisation Lead for the project. Here we go into detail on some...

Professor Yongkang Xue – Anthropogenic Contributions To The Sahel Mega-Droughts

Geography and climatology researcher Professor Yongkang Xue at the University of California, Los Angeles, has shown for the first time, in a series of studies using multi-model efforts, that the Sahel region 30-year long droughts are partly a result of human activity...

Dr Tony Lui – Investigating Plasma Storms And Substorms In Our Near-Earth Backyard

Space physicist Dr Tony Lui has spent four decades increasing our understanding of the mechanisms behind the magnetic disturbances and interactions of space plasma surrounding our home planet. Plasma, a ubiquitous state of matter In the calm and comfort of a...

Dark Is The New Black

Eighty-four percent of the matter in the universe is made of something we cannot see, cannot detect, can only guess at based on the gravitational shadows it leaves in the visible universe. Sounds crazy? Welcome to the world of dark matter, where teams of researchers...

Professor Urs Schaltegger – Using Radioisotopes In Volcanic Crystals To Measure The Age Of The Earth

Professor Urs Schaltegger, with his colleagues in the Isotope Geochemistry Group at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, analyse isotopes of Uranium and Lead found in crystals of the mineral zircon to determine the age of geologic deposits. They use this data to...

Dr Joyce Penner – The Ice Cloud And Climate Puzzle

Figuring out how the highest clouds in the sky behave means understanding how ice forms at high altitude. This is especially true when trying to quantify the impact of human activity on their formation and how it affects climate change. To improve our understanding,...

Dr Karen Bemis, Dr Darrell Jackson, Dr Guangyu Xu – The Last Unexplored Places On Earth

It takes a multidisciplinary approach involving physics, chemistry, biology and geology to uncover the mysteries of the least explored and understood places on Earth. A blind sighted look into the ocean depths Earth is a water world. Although oceans cover 71% of its...

Dr James T. Potemra – Investigating What Goes On At The Bottom Of The Deep Blue Sea

Oceanographer Dr James Potemra and his colleagues at the University of Hawaii’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) monitor one of the most remote places on Earth – the bottom of the ocean – with the ALOHA Cabled Observatory, a high tech suite of...

Professor Andrew Webb – Tumours In The Crosshairs: New Tools To Resurrect An Old Strategy For Targeted Cancer Therapy

Professor Andrew Webb and his undergraduate research students at Wellesley College have developed a highly selective nano-therapeutic that could be used to treat solid tumours. The method involves gold nanoparticles loaded with boron-10, which can selectively...

Professor Ken Sims – Understanding Volcanoes To Help Protect People

Geologist and volcanologist Professor Ken Sims and his colleagues from across the globe want to improve our understanding of active volcanoes in an effort to advance the science of volcanology. But they also want to protect the lives of people living near these...

Dr Jesper W. Gjerloev – Earth Interactions With Space – Do We Finally Understand Them?

Space scientist Dr Jesper Gjerloev and his colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, are part of a world-wide consortium of scientists studying the Earth’s interactions with near Space. Mother Earth’s Magnetic...

American Geophysical Union – Space Physics And Aeronomy

The Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is the primary professional organisation for over 2800 scientists, engineers and space weather forecasters across the globe who are actively engaged in trying to understand and...

Dr David Stanford – Improving Our Healthcare System With Queueing Theory

Dr David Stanford’s research at the University of Western Ontario involves applying the mathematics of Queueing Theory to real-world problems in healthcare, such as emergency department wait times and organ donor priority lists. To begin with, what motivated you to...

Professor Nita Sahai – Geochemical Beginnings: How Minerals May Have Played A Key Role In The Origins Of Life

Professor Nita Sahai, of the University of Akron, studies the geochemistry underlying protocell formation and evolution, with a view to understanding the origins of life. This fascinating research is applicable to understanding both how life started on our own planet,...

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

On the 14th of September 2015 scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime for the very first time. These ripples, known as gravitational waves, arrived at Earth from a cataclysmic event in the...

Dr. Sharon Ruthstein – The Importance Of Copper In The Human Cell

Dr. Sharon Ruthstein researches the biological pathways involving metal ions, especially copper, by using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) Spectroscopy. Here, she discusses the importance of copper in the human body and the implications for future diagnostic and...

The Small Business Administration

Small businesses are the creators of jobs and the driving force behind the US economy. Recognising this truth, the US government established the Small Business Administration (SBA) in 1953 in order to help Americans start and develop their own small businesses. As...