Fascination Science public lecture Tuesday (30 April) - The light fantastic
Our next lecture in the Fascination Science series will go ahead on Tuesday 30 April 7pm-8.30pm at Massey University's Auckland campus in Albany in the Sir Neil Waters lecture theatre.
Please join Prof. Martin (Bill) Williams from the Palmerston North campus of Massey University for his talk on
The light fantastic: Dizzying interactions between light and matter
Nature provides fascinating examples of nanotechnology, creating functional entities from the bottom-up; from molecules to materials & devices. But this is not the nanotechnology of miniature submarines and nano-bots; it is that of molecular biology, the wet nanotechnology of biopolymers and their assemblies. It is the nanotechnology of DNA condensation and transcription, of protein fibers and molecular motors. It is the physics of the nanoscale that is so elegantly exploited and Brownian motion that brings the dance to life.
In order to take a trip down the rabbit hole of such exquisite molecular machinery scientists need not only to see but also to feel the nanoworld. Optical tweezers (OT), for which Arthur Askin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, are one of the exciting tools that can be used to apply and measure minute forces, and they do so, not using tiny mechanical grippers, but using highly focused beams of light. The talk will describe how OT perform this remarkable task and our journey to implement them in order to stretch a single strand of DNA.
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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63.3% Summer
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35.4% Winter
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1.3% Other - I'll share below
New Year, New Questions You Won’t Solve!
I get smaller every time I take a bath.
What am I?
Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.
Want to stop seeing riddles in your newsfeed?
Head here and hover on the Following button on the top right of the page (and it will show Unfollow) and then click it. If it is giving you the option to Follow, then you've successfully unfollowed the Riddles page.
Share your summer photos! 📷
Taken some beautiful snaps lately? Whether it's rainbows, sunsets or a beautiful summer's day, we'd love you to share the joy with us.
Share a photo in the comments below
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