Two months after CERN released the staggering news emerged on 21st September last that light speed had – apparently – been exceeded, scientists are still checking and rechecking the experiment that produced the result. The reason for all the checking is that if the speed of light was shown to be broken, it would overturn [...]
Archive for November, 2011
25 Nov
Microelectronics in Ireland – The future is bright
The Irish economy might be on its knees, but here and there, there are some signs of hope. One of our brightest hopes is for the continued success of the microelectronics industry here. Microelectronics is all about the tiny components we put into our beloved modern devices to make them work better, such as microchips [...]
23 Nov
THE EARTHQUAKE DETECTIVE: Robert Mallett
The first photographs ever taken of the aftermath of an earthquake were taken of the Great Neopolitan Quake of 1857, which destroyed the village of Pertosa, pictured here, and many other towns and villages in southern Italy. The pictures were taken by a Frenchman called Grellier, and commissioned by Irish scientist and Dubliner Robert Mallett who [...]
21 Nov
Chinese astronomy was 800 years ahead of the west
The world’s first atlas of the stars was produced by Chinese astronomers. This achievement came eight centuries before Europeans managed to produce their own chart, thus underlining the superiority of Chinese medieval astronomy. We discuss how exactly the Chinese astronomers mapped the stars, how their star chart was lost, and dramatically found again, and the [...]
21 Nov
The ‘Cyber Policewoman’
The sophistication of online criminals is increasing all the time, and their activities extend beyond fraud and theft, into sinister areas such as paedophilia and cyber terrorism. It is important, therefore, to understand the psychology of the online criminal, as well as that of their potential victims, and this is the work of Dr Grainne [...]
10 Nov
What’s it like to be an astronaut?
Ever wonder what it would be like to be an astronaut? To be the first person from your country to go into space? To conduct a spacewalk outside your spacecraft, while watching planet Earth passing by below? Christer Fuglesang, from Sweden, pictured on the right, is one of the most experienced astronauts in Europe. He [...]
8 Nov
When Ireland was ‘Wolf Land’
Wolves were in Ireland long before humans arrived, perhaps as long ago as 30,000 years back when they would have moved across Ice sheets from continental Europe into a land that was, at that stage, like today’s Siberian tundra. (Picture Credit: Four Courts Press) The archaeological evidence suggests that they lived here in plentiful numbers, [...]
7 Nov
Wildflowers of Ireland, A Personal Record
Zoe Devlin, the author of ‘Wildflowers of Ireland – A Personal Record’ (the cover of which is above) began a love affair with Ireland’s wildflowers when she was just eight years old. That was when she was first shown a delicate wild orchid under a magnifying glass by an elderly relative her family regularly visited [...]
7 Nov
Let’s draw a Finn line in education
This article was first published in The Sunday Times on 06/11/2011 With Irish secondary-school students still performing poorly in maths and science compared with their peers in other developed nations, it is time to look at the success of the acknowledged “market leader”: Finland. Finnish students have consistently ranked highly in maths and science in [...]
