Monthly Archives: April 2011
Plasmonic resonances in semiconductors
Scientists have demonstrated localised surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in semiconductors, extending the range of materials that can be used for photonics and offering new possibilities for light harvesting, nonlinear optics and quantum information processes. The phenomenon of plasmonics has generally been studied in nanostructures at the interfaces between a noble metal and a dialectric. A [...]
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Feature: Man & Machine
KT Roberts is surprised by the achievements of cybernetics A question that has always fascinated me is where the line between science fact and science fiction lies; how close to the real world are some of the latest sci-fi books and television shows? And can we get closer to realising these seemingly impossible ideas in [...]
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‘King of rabbits’ unearthed on Minorca
Palaeontologists have discovered an enormous fossil rabbit on the Spanish island of Minorca. It has been officially named Nuralagus rex, meaning ‘Minorcan hare king’. Bones from the fossil were found in rock formations dating back approximately three million years. The giant creature, now extinct, is expected to have weighed around 12kg, which is six times [...]
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Earliest tooth decay linked to teeth evolution
A fossil recently discovered in Texas provides the earliest evidence of tooth decay in a terrestrial vertebrate. The fossilized remains of the reptile Labidosaurus hamatus predate the previous oldest evidence of tooth decay by 200 million years. L. hamatus was one of the first reptiles to live permanently on land. While its predecessors fed exclusively [...]
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Catchy whale tunes
Humpback whale songs have been found to be transmitted culturally on a huge scale from west to east. A decade’s worth of whale song recordings from six neighbouring populations in the Pacific Ocean have shown that male humpback whale songs spread from populations off the east coast of Australia to French Polynesia over about two [...]
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Feature: The ‘Map of Life’
Further to our recent news story, Tim Middleton interviews creators of the new ‘Map of Life’ website and looks into the apparent absurdities and controversies of convergent evolution. Deep inside the bodies of octopi, two different sorts of worm spend their lives drenched in octopus pee. Both types of worm have a specialised head and [...]
Puddingstone film
In this short film, Dr Bryan Lovell, President of the Geological Society of London, tells us about his favourite rock: the Hertfordshire puddingstone. He explains how puddingstone is not only interesting geologically (see this paper by Dr Lovell), but is also important for our study of the Earth’s climate (as Dr Lovell explains in this [...]
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Earliest non-marine multicellular life seen in Scottish fossils
Large populations of diverse microfossils from lochs in the northwest of Scotland indicate that the evolution of multi-cellular organisms may have commenced on land far earlier than previously thought. Fossils of microorganisms less than 1 mm in diameter were first identified in shale from Loch Torridon in 1907. Subsequent studies over the last century have [...]
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The search for antimatter
This month the space shuttle Endeavour will make its final journey after a loyal 19 years service and its last mission may be the most important to date. Endeavour will dock into the International Space Station one last time carrying with it the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). The AMS is designed to sift through particles [...]
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The Human Brain Atlas