Research News
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Ice decline means Northern Sea route may become viable shipping option
Further declines in Arctic Sea ice levels could see the Northern Sea route (NSR) open to intercontinental shipping for up to six months each year, new research has found. The study, by a team of Russian researchers, used satellite data and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) climate data processing tool to model the trends […]
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LEGO-like blocks build new possibilities for microfluidics
LEGO already has millions of applications, building everything from castles to spaceships. But researchers in California have found a new use for the popular blocks – a modular microfluidics system. Microfluidics is a rapidly emerging technology with promising biomedical applications. It involves fluid manipulation at the microscale, where the fluid is usually set in motion […]
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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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Modelling sheds new light on bacteria behaviour
A new study into how bacteria move, behave, and form colonies could allow a better understanding of infections, and pave the way to new antimicrobial treatments. For their paper, published today in the New Journal of Physics, the interdisciplinary team from the Max Planck Institute and Helmholtz-Center, Dresden, and from Brooklyn College of the City […]
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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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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 […]
