Tag Archives: Science

Cosmic alchemy: Colliding neutron stars show us how the universe creates gold

Duncan Brown is the Charles Brightman Professor of Physics at Syracuse University. He works on gravitational-wave astronomy and astrophysics.

Edo Berger is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. He researches a wide range of explosive and eruptive astrophysical phenomena, including gamma-ray bursts, tidal disruption events, super-luminous supernovae, and other optical transients (from the Pan-STARRS project and elsewhere), as well as magnetic activity in sub-stellar objects.

Why physics needs art to help picture the universe

Frank Wilczek is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and a Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director of T. D. Lee Institute and Chief Scientist Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Distinguished Origins Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) and full Professor at Stockholm University.

Wilczek, along with David Gross and H. David Politzer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute.

His most recent book is ‘A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design’.

Our obsession with taking photos is changing how we remember the past

“Human memory represents my main research interest, and more specifically I study how personal memories are remembered in normal people and in those whose ability to remember is exceptional. I believe in disseminating the results of research to the larger public. My work on memory has been featured in newspapers and magazines in the UK (among many, The Sunday Times) and around the world (among many,The Washington Post). I enjoy collaborations with artists (see the False Memory Archive; The Not Knowns theatre project, both funded by the Wellcome Trust).”

Giuliana Mazzoni is Professor of Psychology, University of Hull.

How we identified brain patterns of consciousness

Davinia Fernández-Espejo is Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham. Her main goal is to understand how the brain supports consciousness and what goes wrong for patients to become entirely unaware after severe brain injury. She uses techniques such as MRI (structural and functional), tDCS, and behavioural approaches in both healthy volunteers and patients with a disorder of consciousness to test hypotheses about the role of different brain structures in the clinical deficits they present. This research is directly translated into the development of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers to be used in clinical settings, as well as the development of novel treatment approaches.

We may just have solved the great mystery of why drops splash

“I am interested in the flow of liquids and gases at very small scales (so-called microfluidics) where experimental analysis is often impossible. Using mathematical modelling and computational simulation can then provides unique insight into such flows.
Much of my research has concerned the dynamics of liquid drops – how they merge, form and interact with solid surfaces (do they splash?).”

James Sprittles is Assistant Professor in Mathematics, University of Warwick.

To Not Follow Under

Leah Clements’s practice is concerned with the relationship between the psychological, emotional, and physical, often through personal accounts of unusual or hard-to-articulate experiences. Her work also focuses on sickness / cripness / disability in art, in critical and practical ways.

In March 2019, Leah launched ‘Access Docs for Artists’: an online resource made in collaboration with Lizzy Rose and Alice Hattrick to help disabled artists create and use access documents.

Demystifying the psychedelic experience

Marta Kaczmarczyk is an expert in persuasive science and technology. She is interested in demystifying the psychedelic experience and creating a scientific framework that would be more accessible to the Western mind and more relevant than the shamanic or new age framework which is popular in the psychedelic community. She is a co-founder and a coordinator of Psychedelic Society of the Netherlands; a non-profit organization focused on advocating a safe use of psychedelic substances.

How a trippy 1980s video effect might help to explain consciousness

Robert Pepperell is an interdisciplinary researcher who works between art, science, and philosophy. He has published research in the fields of art history and theory, neuroscience, perceptual psychology, computer science, and philosophy of mind. He current leads FovoLab (www.fovography.com), where methods from art and science are combined to investigate the nature of visual experience and how it can be represented.