2016
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More to rainbows than meets the eye
In-depth review charts the scientific understanding of rainbows and highlights the many practical applications of this fascinating interaction between light, liquid and gas. There’s more to rainbows than meets the eye. Knowledge gained from studying these multicoloured arcs of scattered light can be incredibly useful in ways that may not immediately spring to mind. Rainbow […]
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Could Rudolph and friends help to slow down our warming climate?
Reindeer may be best known for pulling Santa’s sleigh, but a new study suggests they may have a part to play in slowing down climate change too. A team of researchers, writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that when reindeer reduce the height and abundance of shrubs on the Arctic tundra through grazing, […]
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New type of travelling wave pattern could contain biological coordinates
‘Stretchable map’ is a logical way to understand how bacteria manage cell division Physicists in Israel and the US have proposed a new type of travelling wave pattern — one that can adapt to the size of physical system in which it is embedded – reporting the work in the New Journal of Physics. According […]
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Can you bounce water balloons off a bed of nails? Yes, says new study
A group of first year students at Roskilde University, supervised by Dr Tina Hecksher, have shown that water-filled balloons behave very similarly to tiny water droplets, by bouncing them on a bed of nails. Their work, published today in the European Journal of Physics in collaboration with Professor Julia Yeomans at Oxford University, was inspired […]
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Discovery of Einstein’s gravitational-waves wins Physics World Breakthrough Award 2016
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, involving researchers from MIT, Caltech and more than 80 other institutions worldwide, has won the Physics World 2016 Breakthrough of the Year, for its revolutionary, world-first direct observations of gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space–time. The LIGO observations mark the end of a decades-long hunt for […]
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Researchers measure vortex breakdown in a bird’s wake for the first time – thanks to 3D printed goggles
New research has shed light for the first time on how the breakdown of strong vortices birds create by flapping their wings limits our ability to calculate the lift they generate to fly. Using a high speed laser, four cameras running at 1,000 frames per second, and a willing slow-flying parrotlet called Obi, equipped with […]
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Link and node analysis charts language survival
Model examines the interplay between the use of a language and the preference or attitude of the speakers towards it Bilingual speakers play an important role in language survival, according to the results of a new study published in the New Journal of Physics. The work – performed by researchers from the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary […]
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IOP Publishing renews journals contract with IPEM
IOP Publishing is pleased to announce a renewed contract with the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM), for the continued publication of two of its journals – Physics in Medicine and Biology and Physiological Measurement. The renewal of the contract, which will start in 2018, marks the latest chapter in the long-standing relationship […]
