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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
Life that fell between the cracks: mining the fingerprints of alien life
Life that fell between the cracks: mining the fingerprints of alien life
The north east of England might seem to be a strange place to search for alien life but, more than a kilometre beneath the surface, at…
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: The search for the unseeable
Dark matter: The search for the unseeable
This Dark Matter Day, we think about the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass of the Universe and explore how STFC is aiding…
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
SPEQTRE: Protecting data using the ‘spooky’ power of quantum mechanics
SPEQTRE: Protecting data using the ‘spooky’ power of quantum mechanics
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 UK: Taking gravitational wave detection to infinity (and beyond)
The UK: Taking gravitational wave detection to infinity (and beyond)
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
How to beat a mind-controlling parasite
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
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