Physics

What are Spotted Lanternflies, Why You Should Kill Them, and What Haverford Researchers Are Doing to Fight Them
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What are Spotted Lanternflies, Why You Should Kill Them, and What Haverford Researchers Are Doing to Fight Them

Sooyeon Jung

Are you not from the Mid-Atlantic? Have you been terrorized by a brown, spotted bug with the thick black legs? Congratulations, you are in the spotted lanternfly’s hotspot, where this invasive species first came to America a few years ago. Learn more about this insect and what is being done to prevent the spread of its population.

A mature spotted lanternfly. Photo by Matt Rourke on AP Images, via CNN.  Have you seen an insect with dots crawling on campus? When you try to kill it, does it jump and become a bright, flashing red? Does this insect escape easily, and when it does you feel deeply unsettled? Do your pacifist friends yell out when you try to stomp on it? Well, welcome to Pennsylvania, where the invasive species, the spotted lanternfly has completely taken over the state. Learn more about them, and why you are right in killing them. If you are not from around Pennsylvania...
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The Extraordinary and Disastrous Eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcano
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The Extraordinary and Disastrous Eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcano

Ashley Schefler

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcano in January 2022 was the largest our planet has seen in decades, wreaking destruction on the island nation of Tonga in which the volcano resides. Studies of this volcano can help us understand the causes and effects of such massive eruptions, and may even give insight into the geological processes that have shaped the landscape of Mars.

Media from NASA Earth Observatory On January 15, 2022, the largest volcanic eruption in decades devastated the island nation of Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean. The blast released a massive amount of energy, equivalent to between 4 and 18 megatons of TNT, which is hundreds of times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion created a low-frequency pressure wave that circled the Earth, causing the entire atmosphere to oscillate. Ash has coated the islands, causing a serious shortage of clean drinking water, and a tsunami caused by the eruption wrought widespread damage. The effect on...
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How do Snakes Move?
Columns Quirky Queries

How do Snakes Move?

Emi Krishnamurthy

How do these legless creatures slither, glide, crawl, and climb? Here we discuss multiple different mechanisms of snake locomotion (including flying!).

Characters Kaa, an Indian python, and Mowgli in Disney’s “The Jungle Book” (1967). From the Disney gallery. Quirky Queries answers your random science questions. If you have a query, let us know! -- How do these legless creatures slither, glide, crawl, and climb? Here we discuss multiple different mechanisms of snake locomotion (including flying!). Serpentine locomotion Snakes are known to slither. They move by pushing off of rocks, branches, and other surfaces in order to propel forward, but how do snakes travel on flat surfaces? Slithering, called serpentine locomotion, is dependent on the muscles that connect a snake’s skin, spine,...
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The Amazon Rainforest’s Sinking Carbon Sink
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The Amazon Rainforest’s Sinking Carbon Sink

Ashley Schefler

The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, and was once an important carbon sink in the fight against climate change. However, a newly published study ten years in the making shows that the Amazon has switched from being a carbon sink to a carbon source, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it takes in.

Aerial photograph of the Amazon rainforest taken near Manaus, Brazil. By Neil Palmer/CIAT, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders. It is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth, spanning 2.6 million square miles (roughly 70% the size of the United States). The Amazon contains at least 10% of the world’s known species, and, for many years, it has functioned as an important carbon sink. If you’ve been following the news on climate change, you probably know that trees are one of the good guys in the story, able to store...
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What is Dark Matter?
Features

What is Dark Matter?

Hannah James

Dark matter is mysterious to many, and exploring this phenomenon usually leads to more questions than answers. Professors Dr. Karen Masters, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Dr. Daniel Grin, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy, provide key answers and explanations.

Dr. Karen Masters, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy (left), Dr. Daniel Grin, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy (right). Dark matter is mysterious to many, and exploring this phenomenon usually leads to more questions than answers. Professors Dr. Karen Masters, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Dr. Daniel Grin, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy, provide key answers and explanations.  This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the distribution of dark matter in the center of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689, containing about 1,000 galaxies and trillions of stars. Dark matter is an invisible form of matter...
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How Quickly is the Universe Expanding? The Hunt for the True Hubble Constant
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How Quickly is the Universe Expanding? The Hunt for the True Hubble Constant

Lydia Guertin

Though scientists have researched the increasing expansion of the universe for years, a contentious debate still churns regarding the true value of this rate of expansion and how it may be changing right before our eyes.

Microwave emission map that shows the Cosmic Microwave Background, a distribution of early universe temperatures. The blue spots are colder than the red spots. Via NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day/Planck Collaboration It is now a well-known fact that the universe is expanding, but how quickly is it growing? Despite decades of cosmological research across the globe, no astronomer can definitively identify this rate of expansion, the Hubble Constant H0. Such uncertainty stems from Hubble Tension, the quantitative difference between two different methods used to calculate H0. Luckily, Dr. Bruce Partridge, one of the original collaborators on the Planck Satellite...
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Russia’s Neutrino Detector: A New Realm of High-Energy Particle Physics
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Russia’s Neutrino Detector: A New Realm of High-Energy Particle Physics

Lydia Guertin

Scientists in Russia recently launched a new telescope designed to detect heavy particles coming from all across the galaxy, moving us closer than ever to understanding extreme astrophysics.

Setup view of the Antares Neutrino Telescope, François Montanet Via Wikimedia Commons Some of the biggest mysteries in modern astronomy involve the emission of neutrinos, including high-energy astrophysical events like supernovae and black hole formation that also emit high-energy light in the form of gamma rays. These neutrinos are subatomic particles that interact very weakly with their surroundings, so they can only be observed using very sensitive telescopes, complicating the process to observe them. To further the studies of extreme phenomena like black holes, rapidly-rotating neutron stars called pulsars, and galaxy merger events, where two galaxies collide, scientists in Russia...
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Lightning and the Origins of Life on Earth
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Lightning and the Origins of Life on Earth

Ashley Schefler

Lightning strikes could have provided the phosphorus needed for the development of life on Earth, according to a new study.

Lightning during a thunderstorm. Photo by Felix Mittermeier via Unsplash. Phosphorus is an essential element for all life on Earth. Without it, we would not have the DNA that stores our genetic information, the ATP that provides energy for chemical reactions, or the phospholipids that make up our cell membranes. While phosphorus is abundant in Earth’s rocks, it is present in an oxidized form that makes it unreactive, and is therefore inaccessible to biological organisms. So how did early life on Earth gain access to phosphorus? Until now, the prevailing theory has been that meteorites brought phosphorus to Earth in...
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The Twenty-Two Percent: A Review of Gender in Physics
Features Science in Society

The Twenty-Two Percent: A Review of Gender in Physics

Ashley Schefler

Recently, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University published a study ten years in the making investigating the relationship between gender and performance in introductory physics courses. This article will review the results of the study, as well as the underlying problems that have led to the underrepresentation of women in the field.

Naval officer Gretchen S. Herbert speaks with young women participating in a Pre-College Experiences in Physics (PREP) Summer Program at the University of Rochester. Photo by U.S. Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Katrina Sartain, via Wikimedia Commons. Note: This article will use some binary gender language (“women” and “men”). These were the genders studied and language used in the papers this article covers, but I acknowledge that this language does not encompass the whole spectrum of identities. Recently, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University published a study ten years in the making investigating the relationship...
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Swirling Plasma Clouds: What We Know About Space Hurricanes
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Swirling Plasma Clouds: What We Know About Space Hurricanes

Lydia Guertin

On August 20, 2014, researchers at Shandong University in China noticed some strange readings at Earth’s polar regions. While they didn’t know it then, the team at Shandong University was watching the first observed space hurricane.

Illustration based on recent confirmation of first-ever observed space hurricane. Qing-He Zhang/Shandong University eOn August 20, 2014, researchers at Shandong University in China noticed some strange readings at Earth’s polar regions. There were no solar flares, abnormal geomagnetic conditions, or other phenomena that could explain these readings, yet there was a storm building at the North Pole. This was no ordinary storm: massive plasma clouds with spiraling arms were beginning to take shape, pulling electrons in from Earth’s magnetic field lines. While they didn’t know it then, the team at Shandong University was watching the first observed “space hurricane.” These...
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Creating a Real Warp Drive: Zero to 299,800,000 in No Time
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Creating a Real Warp Drive: Zero to 299,800,000 in No Time

Lydia Guertin

A warp drive is a type of engine designed to travel at the speed of light, which is a revolutionary concept, if one can solve the issue of hurtling a spacecraft with much more mass than a photon through space.

Concept model of an Alcubierre Drive. Via NASA. In 1994, Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed something seemingly out of science-fiction: a real, working warp drive with the capacity to travel faster than the speed of light. Well, “working” in the theoretical sense, but even then it did not quite follow the ever-present laws of physics. A warp drive is a type of engine designed to travel at the speed of light, which is a revolutionary concept, if one can solve the issue of hurtling a spacecraft with much more mass than a photon through space. This idea, while not practical...
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News

Four New Exoplanets Discovered

Hannah James

The discovery of four new exoplanets gives insight into how scientists search for habitable or previously inhabited exoplanets.

An artist’s rendering of five planets orbiting TOI-1233, four of which were discovered using the Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey (TESS), an MIT-led NASA mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The discovery of four new exoplanets gives insight into how scientists search for habitable or previously inhabited exoplanets. Exoplanets are just like the planets in our very own solar system, but with one key difference: They orbit around other stars instead of the Sun. Because exoplanets orbit bright stars, they are very difficult to detect with telescopes, so the discovery of an exoplanet is a very big deal. MIT researchers recently discovered four new...
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A New SPARC of Hope for Fusion Energy
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A New SPARC of Hope for Fusion Energy

Celeste Cubbage

A new spark of hope has recently emerged in the field of clean energy technology: the SPARC fusion reactor. Scientists and technicians affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been collaborating on this new fusion energy reactor, which has more promising projections than previous reactors.

Model of SPARC under design by MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Rendering by T. Henderson, CFS/MIT-PSFC, via Wikimedia Commons  A new spark of hope has recently emerged in the field of clean energy technology: the SPARC fusion reactor. Scientists and technicians affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been collaborating on this new fusion energy reactor, which has more promising projections than previous reactors. Fusion energy provides a carbon-free, abundant power source that is safer than nuclear power with virtually no long-life radioactive waste. Matter becomes plasma by being heated in...
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