Uncovering the mysteries of The Book of Kells – from myopic monks on magic mushrooms to superhuman detail: The Book of Kells is a late-eighth century illustrated copy of the four gospels of the New Testament, traditionally associated with the affiliated monasteries of Iona in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland and Kells in County Meath, …
Great Mysteries of Physics: do we really need a theory of everything?: Particle physics has failed to find some of the evidence physicists were hoping for. D-Visions/Shutterstock Finding a theory of everything – explaining all the forces and particles in the universe – is arguably the holy grail of physics. While each of its main …
Great Mysteries of Physics: will we ever have a fundamental theory of life and consciousness?: metamorworks/Shutterstock What’s the difference between a living collection of matter, such as a tortoise, and an inanimate lump of it, such as a rock? They are, after all, both just made up of non-living atoms. The truth is, we don’t …
Great Mysteries of Physics: does objective reality exist?: Bricolage/Shutterstock It is hard to shake the intuition that there’s a real and objective physical world out there. If I see an umbrella on top of a shelf, I assume you do too. And if I don’t look at the umbrella, I expect it to remain there …
Great Mysteries of Physics 3: is there a multiverse?: The light left over from the Big Bang, seen by the Planck satellite. ESA/ LFI & HFI Consortia, CC BY-SA Interest in the multiverse theory, suggesting that our universe is just one of many, spiked following the release of the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. …
Great Mysteries of Physics 2: is the universe fine-tuned for life?: Our universe is just right for structure such as galaxies, planets and life to form. NASA/James Webb Telescope Imagine a universe with extremely strong gravity. Stars would be able to form from very little material. They would be smaller than in our universe and …
Great Mysteries of Physics 1: is time an illusion?: shutterstock andrey_l/Shutterstock Without a sense of time, leading us from cradle to grave, our lives would make little sense. But on the most fundamental level, physicists aren’t sure whether the sort of time we experience exists at all. This is the topic of the first episode …
Great Mysteries of Physics: a mind-blowing podcast from The Conversation: “There is nothing new to discover in physics”, declared the British physicist Lord Kelvin in 1900. This is no longer true. Today it is becoming increasingly clear that there are problems that physics – at least as we currently know it – isn’t able to …
Forensic science is unlocking the mysteries of fatal lightning strikes: Lightning storm over Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr Carina Schumann, Johannesburg Lightning Research Lab, University of the Witwatersrand., CC BY-NC Lightning is one of the most powerful sources of energy in the natural environment. As anyone who has spent time in Johannesburg during the South African …
Shakespeare and Cervantes: what similarities between the famous writers reveal about mysteries of authorship: Andy Rain/EPA William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, two of the most important writers of literature, are surrounded by a halo of mystery related to authorship. In the case of Shakespeare, the question of whether he is the true author of …
Glacier mice: these herds of moss-balls roam the ice – and we’re uncovering their mysteries: Glacier mice were first documented in 1951, but they continue to mystify scientists. Nicholas Midgley, Author provided Glaciers are commonly considered to be cold and barren places that are hostile to life. Plants cannot grow directly on these slowly flowing …
How a ‘muon accelerator’ could unravel some of the universe’s greatest mysteries: The supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. NASA The fact that we are here at all is one of the greatest puzzles of physics. We are made from normal particles such as electrons, but every such particle also has an antimatter companion that is virtually …
‘The Cow’ explosion: how astronomers are cracking one of the greatest new mysteries of the sky: The cow erupted near a galaxy known as CGCG 137-068, marked by the yellow cross. Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey, CC BY-SA Something highly unusual was picked up by the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on June …
How scientists are working together to solve one of the universe’s mysteries: An artist’s impression of fast radio bursts in the sky above the Australian SKA precursor, ASKAP. OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology One of the most baffling puzzles of modern astrophysics is the nature of Fast Radio Bursts, which were discovered in 2007. These …
New telescope chases the mysteries of radio flashes and dark energy: HIRAX prototype dishes at Hartebeesthoek Astronomy Observatory near Johannesburg. Kabelo Kesebonye South Africa is becoming one of the world’s most important radio astronomy hubs, thanks in large part to its role as co-host of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Now a new telescope is …
Miracle mysteries EXPOSED: World’s weirdest religious wonders…: And many doggedly persevere in trusting these divine signs, despite science increasingly capable of explaining freak phenomena and revealing others as elaborate hoaxes. Yet despite scientific progress and an increasingly sceptical population, there are still many miraculous phenomena that continue to defy rational explanation. : Weird News Bizarre …
Neuroscience is unlocking mysteries of the teenage brain: Shutterstock How would you describe an average teenager? For most people, the following characteristics might come to mind: moody, impulsive, risk taking, likely to succumb to peer pressure. While it’s clear that adolescence is a period of life that is rife with stereotypes, there is some truth …
Mysteries of the Cosmos – a Music interest event taking place on 2018-08-25 17:00:00 in United States 4 pm Musical Icebreaker 5 pm Concert followed by optional dinner (dinner can be added to ticket order at checkout) George Crumb: Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos IV): Cosmic Dances for amplified piano, four-hands Gustav Holst: The Planets for two …