The Crucible: Summer 2017

Sticking to a 2°C global temperature rise (compared to pre-industrial levels) is not looking likely. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has come into force, and the USA has announced…

Biomimicry: an innovative approach to design, systems and structures that is inspired by nature. By focussing on time-tested biological structures, we can often – but, as you will see, not…

Dear Members From being “quite pleasant” last month, the weather is now really quite unpleasant. For all those of you who may not know much about New York’s meteorological conditions…

In the following piece, doctors Josh Hulman and Helen Wanstall talk about their time at Ronald Ross General Hospital, the main hospital in Mufulira, so named after the clinician who…

The history of gallium nitride tells of a low-efficiency, impure, problematic compound. A relatively modern material, gallium was discovered in 1875 and instantly slotted into a gap in Mendeleev’s periodic…

Rice University scientists have created a rechargeable lithium metal battery with three times the capacity of commercial lithium-ion batteries by resolving something that has long stumped researchers: the dendrite problem.…

Heat is one of the worst enemies of electronics. It can disrupt functionality and cause electronic components to age more quickly, or even destroy them. Now Fraunhofer researchers have developed…

13 months on from the historic vote to leave the European Union, the plan for the Great British exit is somewhat unclear. The second round of negotiations began in mid-July…