Science

Some atoms seem to be particularly stable because of their numbers of protons and neutronsShutterstock/ktsdesign A special set of numbers has formed the backbone of nuclear physics research for decades, and now we finally know how it arises from the quantum mix of nuclear particles and forces. Nearly 80 years ago, physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer showed that when the nucleus of an atom contains certain numbers of protons and neutrons, such as 50 or 82, it becomes exceptionally stable. In the years since, researchers amassed evidence of more such “magic numbers”, which are found in the most stable, and therefore most abundant, elements in our universe. Goeppert Mayer and her contemporaries explained these numbers by proposing that protons and neutrons occupy discrete...

Gisela Winckler on board the RV Joides Resolution in the South Pacific.Credit: C. Alvarez Zarikian Gisela Winckler grew up in rural Germany, nowhere near the ocean. As an undergraduate, she chose to major in physics, which she continued to pursue as a Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg, but she remembers feeling uncertain about how to connect her laboratory studies with something tangible in the real world. It was only when she discovered environmental physics and marine science that her interests started to cohere. Now, Winckler is a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and professor of climate at the Columbia Climate School. She focuses on the history and causes of past, present and future climate variability, as well as the ocean’s role in the climate system an...

Oshen’s robotic sailboats are powered by the wind and the sunOshen The UK’s Royal Navy may return to the age of sail, with a new demonstration involving a flotilla of small, wind-propelled robot boats. Made by Oshen in Plymouth, UK, the vessels, known as C-Stars, are just 1.2 metres long and weigh around 40 kilos. Solar panels power navigation, communications and sensors, while a sail provides propulsion. Deployed as a constellation, the small vessels act as a wide-area sensor network. “The simplest way of describing C-Stars is as self-deploying, station-keeping ocean buoys,” says Oshen CEO Anahita Laverack. The boats can sail at about 2 knots, covering around 50 miles per day, or use the wind to remain in place rather than drifting. They don’t need to be fast. “S...

How are human beings, animals and plants interconnected? What does the decline of biodiversity mean for these relationships and how we understand them? How can we transform or reconsider existing narratives in a changing world? These questions were the subject of a recent interdisciplinary panel titled “Mending the Living World,” hosted by the Columbia Climate School, the Columbia Maison Française, Alliance Program and Villa Albertine. It was the inaugural edition of Albertine Conversations, a series designed to address the complex issues currently facing our society.  Archaeologist and associate professor at Columbia Climate School Kristina Douglass, French philosopher Corine Pelluchon, conservation scientist Ana Luz Porzecanski and biodiversity policy expert Cyrille Barnérias, disc...

An artist’s representation of qubits in the Quantum Twins simulatorSilicon Quantum Computing An unprecedently large quantum simulator could shed light on how exotic, potentially useful quantum materials work and help us optimise them in the future. Quantum computers may eventually harness quantum phenomena to complete calculations that are intractable for the world’s best conventional computers. Similarly, a simulator harnessing quantum phenomena could help researchers to accurately model poorly understood materials or molecules. This is especially true for materials such as superconductors, which conduct electricity with nearly perfect efficiency, because they derive this property from quantum effects that could be directly implemented on quantum simulators but w...