From Twitching Frogs to Contaminated Rivers - The Story of the Lithium-Ion Battery By Ana Kerridge In 1781, biophysicist Luigi Galvani accidentally discovered that a frog’s leg would twitch when simultaneously touched by a steel scalpel and brass hook. The mechanism found to be responsible for this led his rival, physicist Alessandro Volta to invent the world’s first electrochemical cell (Veritasium, UCL Science Magazine • Physics
Scientists say 40-year dispute over Earth’s inner core is finally settled By Ariella Morris A 40-year scientific dispute over the Earth’s inner core may finally be over, as researchers reveal new evidence explaining how iron atoms arrange themselves at the centre of the planet. Writing in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth this year, the team reports that iron UCL Science Magazine • Physics
The Unreliable Fabric of Reality Einstein’s relativity reshaped our view of the universe, showing that space and time shift with motion and gravity. This piece reveals how time slows, lengths change, and simultaneity fades, uncovering the physics behind everyday tech like GPS and why observers never share the same moment. UCL Science Magazine • Physics
Are we alone in space? Scientists suspect Mars was once habitable, but radiation and oxidants erase biological traces. New tests exposing DNA on stones to simulated Martian radiation show that full sequences degrade, yet fragments can survive long enough for taxonomic identification, aiding the search for past life. UCL Science Magazine • Physics
How to Train Your Fusion Reactor: Letting Tokamaks Learn Stability Fusion Reactors, while impressively useful for renewable energy production, often run into chaos due to plasma disruption events. A group of scientists tackled this problem using reinforcement learning, letting the reactor learn how to stay stable during operation. By Faraaz Akhtar You may have heard of the notion that we UCL Science Magazine • Physics
Understanding Water: A Deep Dive Using Machine Learning Having struggled to create an accurate functional to describe molecules such as water for years, physicists have now turned their attention to how tools like ML can help with the task. In the process, DM21 is born. By Faraaz Akhtar UCL Science Magazine • Physics
