“Vishnu Varma R Vejayan is a physics student from Queen Mary University of London with an interest in scientific writing and research in physics. He interned at Cosmos in early 2017.”
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What creates Earth’s magnetic field?
The Earth’s core works like a giant bicycle dynamo in reverse.
Travelling to see the Northern or Southern lights has made its way into almost everyone’s bucket list. But unknown to...
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The official kilogram faces constant demand
After immortalised in metal, the kilogram is about to change.
What’s a kilogram to you? A litre of water, perhaps, or maybe a block of cheese. Officially, it’s a lump of metal ke...
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A colourful ‘landing’ on Pluto’s icy heart
How you might see the dwarf planet if you happened to drop by.
NASA used more than 100 photos taken by the New Horizons spacecraft as it approached Pluto in 2015 to make this short...
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How atomic clocks can keep accurate time for billions of years
Caesium atoms, bombarded with microwaves, keep these clocks running exactly on time. Vishnu Varma...
In caesium atomic clocks, atoms of vaporised caesium-133 oscillate between two energy levels as they pass between mag...
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How to find and destroy landmines – safely
Sniffer bees, genetically modified weeds and metal-detecting drones?
Hidden and lethal, landmines are a lingering legacy of war, rendering huge swathes of territory impassable. Exactly h...
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Clear, white and green: why snot changes colour
The chemical compounds that help us power through a cold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbcUcYDejks&feature=emb_logo Ever wondered why our mucous changes colour and cons...
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Park spacecraft next to Proxima Centauri
Solar sails help slow it down before it whizzes past Proxima b.
When it comes to interstellar space travel, getting to the destination quickly is only part of the challenge. How do ...
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Ride along with a rover in the Mars Yard
Take a trip alongside, atop and below the Scarecrow test mobility double for the Curiosity and Ma...
Take a look around the “Mars Yard” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California from on board the Scarecrow rove...
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Swipe, tap, scroll: how touchscreens follow your finger
From automatic teller machines to the smartphone in your hand, touchscreens certainly make life e...
Touchscreens are all around us – you can even use one on a humanoid robot to order at a sushi restaurant in Japan. So...
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Physicists make metallic hydrogen in the lab
Squeeze hydrogen under pressure and it starts to look different.
It’s been 80 years in the making. US physicists have successfully created a metallic form of hydrogen in the lab – bu...
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Robot swarm measures the motion of the ocean
Oceanographers dropped mini underwater drones off the coast of California and found they congrega...
An artist's depiction of the near-shore deployment of the robot swarm off the coast of San Diego.Jaffe et al, 2017 / ...
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Soft, comfy exosuit helps stroke patients walk
A carefully designed robotic ankle forms the centrepiece of this new walking aid.
A new soft, lightweight exosuit built by Harvard researchers reduces the amount of energy needed to walk by more than...
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Cool laser writes data in 20 trillionths of a second
It breaks data writing records, but the storage technique is still a long way off everyday use. V...
Good old hard disc drives, data storage staples for decades.Daniel Sambraus / Getty ImagesEuropean researchers have u...
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Engineers cook up super-light, super-strong 3-D material
Graphene was heated and squashed to become one of the strongest, lightweight materials known.
A new graphene material 10 times stronger than steel but only a 20th its density has been unveiled by Massachusetts I...
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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket safely sticks another ocean landing
Some 10 satellites were sent into Earth orbit too. Vishnu Varma reports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo&feature=emb_title 2017 has already been a good year for SpaceX, with ...
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