Author: Rojitson

Scientists are continuously looking for alternative fuel sources to decarbonise the Earth. As the climate crisis grows ever more prevalent, the need to find fossil fuel alternatives has never been greater. Green hydrogen is a renewable fuel resource that will be making waves in 2021. This type of fuel can be created by breaking off hydrogen atoms that are bound to oxygen atoms in water molecules using electricity supplied by other renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power. The harvested hydrogen can be used as a fuel source for energy production and vehicles without creating damaging pollutants or…

High-velocity particles can tell us a lot about the way the universe works – but can we ever overcome the ultimate speed limit? For a few months in early 2012, the scientific world held its breath as researchers raced to establish whether one of the greatest tenets of modern physics was under threat. The panic was triggered by reports from the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, beneath Italy’s Apennine Mountains, which appeared to show bursts of neutrinos (tiny, near-massless subatomic particles) fired from a particle accelerator at CERN on the Swiss/French border, travelling faster than the speed of light. According to…

The world’s largest quantum computer fridge IBM has built a device that can become 100,000 times colder than outer space In the Hudson Valley, an hour’s train trip away from New York City, I am struggling to move a big, curved piece of metal. It is at the front of a large, cylindrical machine at least twice my size. IBM physicist Pat Gumann lends a helping hand and, together, we get it done. Closing the door of the world’s largest quantum computer fridge is no joke.Quantum computing relies on keeping things cold. The quantum properties that make the computers work disappear…

A swarm of tiny spacecraft propelled by a powerful laser could enable us to more rapidly explore space and map out the properties of the sun and distant planets. One possible method for reaching other planets and stars is by using a light sail, a thin material that can be pushed through space by particles of light, or photons, at high speed. So far, experiments that use the sun’s light to propel spacecraft have only been used near Earth. Maria Pelizzo at the University of Padua in Italy and her colleagues have proposed using a powerful laser, placed either on…

The human body is one big energy factory. Calories go in and they power our organs and muscles, generating excess heat. Simply going for a walk could generate 163 watts of power, but the big challenge is working out how to turn this into usable energy. Scientists are exploring lots of innovative ways to harness human power, and one method involves piezoelectricity, which can be produced from the pressure applied to a surface through motions such as walking. When pressure is applied to an object containing atoms or molecules arranged in a very orderly way, also known as crystals, the…