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BIG Science at STFC
From investigating Universe-spanning ripples in the fabric of space and time to exploring the quantum world of the unimaginably small… welcome to Big (and Little) Science at STFC.
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FOCUS ON: Mind-bending physics
Walking the Planck: the weird world of the littlest measure
Walking the Planck: the weird world of the littlest measure
Can there be a distance too small to measure or a moment of time so brief that it can’t be timed? Welcome to the weird quantum world of…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jan 12
Searching for the Standard Model’s missing pieces
Searching for the Standard Model’s missing pieces
Everyone loves a standard model, but who doesn’t yearn for an expansion set to add to it? Physicists feel the same about the building block…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 24, 2023
Gravitational waves: Everything you need to know
Gravitational waves: Everything you need to know
The first direct detection of gravitational waves back in September 2015 was hailed as the discovery of the century, with the potential to…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jun 20, 2023
Latest stories from across STFC
Is DNA the ultimate digital data storage solution?
Is DNA the ultimate digital data storage solution?
The DNA double helix contains the genetic instructions to build all of life as we know it — so we know it can contain a staggering amount…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Oct 10
Science and art: when opposites attract
Science and art: when opposites attract
Science and art typically sit at two ends of a spectrum – at one end is logic and critical thinking, at the other is interpretation and…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Oct 7
Bubbly personalities: meet particle physics’ ‘scanning girls’
Bubbly personalities: meet particle physics’ ‘scanning girls’
Long before sophisticated electronic detectors were available to physicists, they had to track the movements of particles by using more…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Oct 1
On the galaxy’s DarkSide, something mysterious doth lurk
On the galaxy’s DarkSide, something mysterious doth lurk
According to observations, some 90 percent of the Milky Way galaxy is unaccounted for. We know it should be there but what it made of is a…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Sep 10
How searching Earth’s mines could help Mars rovers find alien life
How searching Earth’s mines could help Mars rovers find alien life
Deep underground in an old salt mine might seem to be a strange place to search for alien life but it is here, more than a kilometre…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 3
Fluorescent nanoparticles: the super-powered cell mapper
Fluorescent nanoparticles: the super-powered cell mapper
In a surprising scientific crossover, nanoparticles designed for use in solar panels to harness the light of the Sun could be used to shine…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Mar 15
Meet the women charting unusual paths to discovery
Meet the women charting unusual paths to discovery
A hobby crafter, horse-riding instructor, and beauty therapist walk into a world-leading science facility… no it’s not a set up for a joke…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Mar 7
Underground Science: Exploring the Large Hadron Collider
Underground Science: Exploring the Large Hadron Collider
My name’s Emma Hattersley, I study physics and I’m currently on a year-long industrial placement at the STFC Particle Physics Department…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Feb 26
Sick plants, your drone doctor will see you now
Sick plants, your drone doctor will see you now
If you want to stop plant disease in its tracks, it’s essential that the damage is diagnosed as quickly as possible. To do that, you can…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Feb 13
How the neutron was discovered (or, how small stuff hit the big time)
How the neutron was discovered (or, how small stuff hit the big time)
Without both the neutron and proton matter as we know it couldn’t exist, but it was the show-stealing positively-charged proton that…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Feb 7
Deep into that dark(matter)ness peering
Deep into that dark(matter)ness peering
Who doesn’t want a tenuously halloween-themed comic strip to celebrate the weirdness of dark matter on the day tenuously linked to…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Oct 24, 2023
What is dark matter?
What is dark matter?
Explore the mystery of dark matter with our print-out-and-keep infographic guides (you don’t have to print it out, you can just look at it…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Oct 24, 2023
Dark matter: Everything you need to know (almost)
Dark matter: Everything you need to know (almost)
Dark matter makes up more than 26% of all the energy in the Universe, while normal matter (the stuff stars, planets and you are made of)…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Oct 24, 2023
Investigating the stickiest glue in the Universe
Investigating the stickiest glue in the Universe
It turns out that even the Universe finds itself fragile enough to need a little glue to keep itself together.
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jul 27, 2023
Quantum cryptography: Using the ‘spooky’ power of quantum to protect our data
Quantum cryptography: Using the ‘spooky’ power of quantum to protect our data
Quantum technologies harness the quirks of the unimaginably small, so it’s only fitting that quantum cryptography is finding a home in tiny…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jul 25, 2023
MALTA3 the little detector chip built to handle big data
MALTA3 the little detector chip built to handle big data
Next-gen particle accelerators will smash more particles together faster and generate more data than ever before. MALTA3 is the next-gen…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jul 25, 2023
ZEPTO: the super-charged, energy-efficient magnet hero we need!
ZEPTO: the super-charged, energy-efficient magnet hero we need!
ZEPTO might sound like a minor character from a 1950s superhero comic, but it is actually a kind of magnet that could revolutionise future…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jun 22, 2023
Gravitational waves: A timeline to discovery
Gravitational waves: A timeline to discovery
The first direct detection of gravitational waves in September 2015 came on the back of almost a century of theoretical and practical…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jun 20, 2023
The next generation of gravitational waves detectors
The next generation of gravitational waves detectors
It’s not just massive gravitational objects that have been making waves in the field of gravitational wave research, the UK has also been…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jun 20, 2023
Meet the ultimate space-simulating, spike-lined, satellite test facility
Meet the ultimate space-simulating, spike-lined, satellite test facility
We explore a new facility where satellites will be shaken to near destruction, baked like a cake, and serenaded by gigantic speakers… and…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Jun 19, 2023
Toxoplasma gondii: How to beat a mind-controlling parasite
Toxoplasma gondii: How to beat a mind-controlling parasite
If mice mothers told cautionary tales to their kids, one might be ‘don’t eat cat poo, or the cat poo eater might be eaten by the cat that…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 26, 2023
Polar bears inspire paint that’s all white for the environment
Polar bears inspire paint that’s all white for the environment
In this article you’ll learn how structural colour can be used to make better paint, but your real take away will be that polar bears are…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 24, 2023
Next-gen detectors for next-gen synchrotrons
Next-gen detectors for next-gen synchrotrons
When you ramp up a facility’s brightness from ten billion times that of the Sun to 700 million times brighter you need a serious detector…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 24, 2023
A good day to dye: how to turn sunlight into fuel
A good day to dye: how to turn sunlight into fuel
Through photosynthesis, plants are brilliant at converting the Sun’s energy into fuel — humans, not so much. A collaboration between…
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 23, 2023
The ‘Year of Four Emperors’ told through gold
The ‘Year of Four Emperors’ told through gold
You’d be surprised what you can learn about a civilisation from a humble coin… having access to a world-leading muon facility helps.
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
May 23, 2023
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