There’re just days to go until Christmas and we bet you’ve already mentally checked out even if you’re still keeping up the pretence of focusing on anything that’s not Yuletide-related. Not us though. Here at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, we wanted to look at the science behind some of our greatest Christmas traditions…
At the top of Sackville Street Building is a little secret – and it’s something all of us in Manchester have a share in. Next time you walk by, look up. You might just spot the white dome that is home to the Godlee Observatory. This tiny window to the stars has been at the…
We’re sure you know your dress size, but do you find it changes depending on the shop you visit? Chances are the answer’s ‘yes’. But why is this? And who determines clothes sizing anyway? Well dress sizing appears to be a product of the age we live in; of fast fashion, greater resource and lower…
Did you know that Manchester is the birthplace of modern nuclear physics? It was created right here by Ernest Rutherford and his colleagues, and this year marks a century since Rutherford initiated the first artificial nuclear reaction. And that wasn’t the end of the team’s breakthroughs. Between 1914 and 1919, Rutherford led many experiments in…
If you’ve started a degree in science or engineering here at The University of Manchester this week, you’ve made a good choice – and you’ll be following in some very distinguished footsteps. You see, Manchester has been at the centre of the European scientific community for centuries. It was in this city that John Dalton…
Tim Gregory and Tessa Naran share more in common than just their UoM background. They also both want to be astronauts and are currently appearing on our screens every Sunday at 9pm. The reason? They’re participants in the new BBC 2 show Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?. Beating off tough competition from 3,000…
We all have it – that cupboard, cabinet or even room where we ‘tidy stuff away’ simply so we can forget about it. Who doesn’t have a box left unpacked after every home move that they just shove unopened under the bed? At The University of Manchester, we have our fair share of chocker storage…
This Left Handers Awareness Day, we decided to set ourselves what we thought was a straightforward task – finding out what causes one in ten of us to favour our left hand for everything from writing to throwing. Turns out, the task wasn’t so easy after all. There is no one proven reason as to…
As the Cold War fades into history, fewer and fewer people remember what life was like lived under the ever-present threat of nuclear warfare. Indeed, even during the Cold War years, the reality of nuclear weapons was downplayed. Atmospheric testing was banned in 1963, driving tests underground – out of sight and out of mind…
