Science

Growing up in Santiago, Chile, Clarisa Marambio watched her two older sisters actively engage in conservation and biodiversity efforts when she was still a kid. Even then, she found herself inspired by what she saw. Credit: Caterina Favino Now, Marambio has followed in the family footsteps as a student in Columbia University’s M.P.A. in Environmental Science and Policy (ESP) program at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), graduating this May. In the Q&A below, Marambio discusses her environmental policy interests, how she tailored her coursework to focus on Latin America and her most memorable experiences in the program. What do you think is the greatest sustainability challenge? There are numerous sustainability challenges, and one that I follow close...

This water purification system is powered by static electricitySang-Woo Kim/Yonsei University in South Korea A bottle can disinfect drinking water by channelling static electricity built up from just 10 minutes of walking – no limited supply of water purification tablets or external power sources required. “Our water disinfection approach holds particular significance for populations in underdeveloped regions, isolated areas, disaster zones and conflict areas lacking adequate sanitation infrastructure,” says Sang-Woo Kim at Yonsei University in South Korea. Kim and his colleagues took a reusable 500-millilitre water bottle and installed a polymer electrode inside that incorporates an array of nanorods made from the conducting polymer Polypyrrole. Those nanorods c...

Peter Higgs at the Science Museum in London in 2013Photo by Andy Rain/EPA/Shutterstock Peter Higgs lived a singular life. He developed a physics theory that stood a chance of radically advancing our understanding of the universe, and lived to see generations of experimentalists chase after and eventually triumphantly corroborate his work in the lab. He died in his home at age 94. “Without Higgs’s work, we wouldn’t understand why there are atoms. Some pretty basic features of our world would not be understandable,” says John Ellis at King’s College London. Higgs started that work at the University of Edinburgh in the UK in the 1960s. He was thinking about a branch of physics called quantum field theory, and in July of 1964, he took about a week to write a short pap...

Marcella Petiprin and Andrew Pontius, two seniors from the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development (SDEV) program, have completed capstone projects at Columbia’s Climate School. They share some of their experiences and advice for students who wish to pursue an academic career in sustainability. Marcella Petiprin was born in Flint, Michigan, and grew up passionate about the outdoors with a focus on water. Her family owns a Christmas tree farm and she is enthusiastic about giving back to the community. She currently sits on the board of the Flint Classroom Support Fund. What drew you to the sustainable development major or special concentration? I was most excited to discover that the sustainable development curriculum was one that focused on the social and economic fe...

The Quantinuum H2 chipQuantinuum Microsoft and the quantum computing firm Quantinuum claim to have made a quantum computer that has an unprecedented level of reliability. Its ability to correct its own errors could be a step towards more practical quantum computers in the near future. “What we did here gives me goosebumps. We have shown that error correction is repeatable, it is working and it is reliable,” says Krysta Svore at Microsoft. Experts have long anticipated the arrival of practical quantum computers, which could complete calculations that are too complex for conventional computers. Though quantum computers are steadily becoming larger and more complex, this prediction hasn’t yet been fully realised. One big reason for this is that all contemporary quantum co...