News archive: 2014

Yearly listings of School news.

A major success for Physics & Astronomy in Scotland

18 December 2014
Edinburgh and St Andrews rated as one of the top UK centres for Physics & Astronomy research.

Industry Project Prize: winner announced

04 December 2014
Congratulations to Stanley Tsang.

Dr Fabiola Gianotti to be next Director General of CERN

05 November 2014
Dr Gianotti is an Honorary Professor, associated with the School's Experimental Physics Group.

Phonons get stuck in the hunt for metallic hydrogen

24 October 2014
A combination of theory and experiment by researchers in the School's Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions has revealed surprising behaviour in high-pressure dense hydrogen-deterium mixtures.

Tiffany Wood becomes a Royal Society Industry Fellow

20 October 2014
Dr Wood to take up a secondment with the makers of Deep Heat.

ENQUIRE: the new School Alumni magazine

01 October 2014
ENQUIRE is the new magazine for the alumni of the School of Physics & Astronomy.

Doors Open Day

30 September 2014
Over 300 people visited the School as part of Edinburgh's Doors Open Day.

Edinburgh astronomers to lead €9m space project

29 September 2014
Scientists at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh will spearhead efforts to probe the distant reaches of the early Universe using a powerful new telescopic tool.

School awarded Athena SWAN Silver status

25 September 2014
The School has been awarded Athena SWAN Silver status in recognition of its ongoing efforts to create a more equitable workplace.

First axion results from the XENON100 experiment

15 September 2014
Axions, if they exist, could solve several problems in understanding our universe and in the description of the forces that govern the subatomic world.

Explorathon: EU Researchers’ Night

12 September 2014
School of Physics researchers will be part of an EU-wide extravaganza of discovery, debate and entertainment on Friday 26th September.

Science meets art

20 August 2014
A collaboration between the School and Edinburgh College of Art has resulted in an award-winning photograph.

Our galaxy is Way lighter than previous estimates, study shows

05 August 2014
Researchers have found that the Milky Way is approximately half the weight of the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy.

Support available for outstanding researchers

05 August 2014
The School invites expressions of interest from potential applicants for the STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowships and the Royal Society University Research Fellowships. Both schemes provide five years' funding for outstanding researchers.

Broadening access to physics with the Sutton Trust

04 August 2014
One hundred high school students recently participated in a week of activities at the University of Edinburgh as part of a summer school organised by the Sutton Trust.

Beauty 2014

21 July 2014
Researchers from the School's experimental particle physics group organised the 15th International Conference on B-Physics at Frontier Machines (Beauty 2014).

Higgs boson and Beyond

14 July 2014
The School's Particle Physics groups take part in a Higgs Boson exhibit at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition.

Victoria Martin joins Young Academy of Scotland

14 July 2014
Dr Victoria Martin of the School's Particle Physics Experiment group joins the Royal Society of Scotland’s Young Academy forum.

Making Waves

09 July 2014
New film marks the opening of the Flowave tank.

Investigating the habitability of Mars

03 July 2014
The new MASE (Mars Analogues for Space Exploration) research project based within the UK Centre for Astrobiology will assess the habitability of Mars by studying how life survives in extreme environments on Earth.

Nobel-winning scientists honoured at graduation ceremony

26 June 2014
Celebrated Nobel laureates Professors Peter Higgs and Francois Englert are to receive honorary degrees at a ceremony in Edinburgh this weekend.

School astronomers join Highly Cited Researchers listing

23 June 2014
The Institute for Astronomy's John Peacock and Rob Ivison have been included in Thomson Reuters' Highly Cited Researchers listing for 2014.

All the sky – all the time

23 June 2014
UK astronomers debate involvement in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

From neutron skins to neutron stars

18 June 2014
The Edinburgh nuclear physics group has led new research that will guide the latest theories of neutron stars.

'Mega Earth': first strong evidence of massive solid planets

05 June 2014
As discussed in Slate's Bad Astronomy blog, a new kind of planet has been found. This “mega Earth” is a rocky planet far more massive than our own.

Discrepancies in National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles

03 June 2014
Are men more promiscuous than women? The results of the latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) appear to suggest so. However, in a comment in The Lancet - one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world - the School's Tom Underwood has highlighted that this is mathematically impossible.

School's Prof. John Peacock is joint recipient of Shaw Prize in Astronomy

28 May 2014
Prof. John Peacock has been jointly awarded the prestigious Shaw Prize in Astronomy for 2014 for his work on the large-scale Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey.

University's supercomputing centre joins world’s elite Intel® Parallel Computing Centers

28 May 2014
EPCC has been designated an Intel Parallel Computing Centre through a prestigious grant from Intel – a distinction currently held by only a handful of parallel computing centres worldwide.

EUSA Teaching Awards 2014

25 April 2014
Congratulations to the School's Eliana Lambrou and Charles Cockell, who were both recognised at this year's awards.

In search of dark matter

15 April 2014
The LUX experiment is seeking the first ever direct detection of dark matter.

LHCb experiment at CERN confirms existence of exotic resonance

10 April 2014
New discovery does not fit into normal pattern of quark combinations.

Radioactive waste used to explore exploding stars

03 April 2014
An experiment led by the School's Alex Murphy has used a highly novel technique to explore a key nuclear reaction needed to interpret satellite-based gamma-ray observations of core collapse supernovae.

ARCHER supercomputer targets research solutions on epic scale

24 March 2014
ARCHER is a new-generation supercomputer, capable of more than one million billion calculations a second.

Astrophysics undergraduate co-authors American Journal for Astrophysics paper

13 March 2014
Astrophysics undergraduate Victoria Weller von Ahlefeld is a co-author of a paper about Gamma-Ray Bursts that was published in the American Journal for Astrophysics this month.

MSc in High Performance Computing: virtual open days 2014

07 March 2014
We offer an MSc in High Performance Computing, which is taught by EPCC, one of the leading centres of supercomputing expertise in Europe.

Graeme Ackland awarded Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award

03 March 2014
Prof. Graeme Ackland, of the School's Institute for Condensed Matter & Complex Systems, is to receive the award, which recognises outstanding scientists working in the UK.

Peter Higgs on BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific

17 February 2014
Jim Al-Khalili's interview with Prof. Higgs kicks off the new season of The Life Scientific.

Innovative Learning Week 2014

17 February 2014
The School is offering a programme of events as part of ILW 2014.

Sign up for free Higgs boson MOOC

10 February 2014
A new online course which offers people the chance to study the work of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Peter Higgs is being offered.

L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowships for Women in Science

31 January 2014
Applications invited for four fellowships of £15,000 each (equivalent in Euros for Irish candidates) for outstanding female post-doctoral scientists.

Chancellor's Fellowships

27 January 2014
The School of Physics & Astronomy seeks to appoint Chancellor's Fellows. These 5-year Fellowships are intended to support outstanding candidates at the start of their independent academic careers.

Weather map of a distant world could shed new light on planets

24 January 2014
Studying the weather on a distant world – where it rains molten iron – could help scientists to better understand weather patterns in other solar systems.

Survey: potential new online MSc in Astrobiology

24 January 2014
Interested in a new postgraduate opportunity in Astrobiology? We'd like to hear your views.

School awarded Juno Champion status

21 January 2014
We are delighted to announce that we have been recognised by the Institute of Physics for our commitment to addressing gender inequities across the student and staff body.

Royal Astronomical Society award

08 January 2014
The Institute for Astronomy's Prof. James Dunlop has been awarded the 2014 George Darwin Lectureship by the Royal Astronomical Society.

Summer Student Scheme bursaries available

08 January 2014
The School funds and supports six students with a bursary of £1,500 each to undertake projects within the School during the Summer vacation period.