Plasma physics

How can we detect exoplanets, i.e. planets orbiting other stars, potentially a few tens of lightyears away from Earth? What can we learn about their host stars from the way their light is dimmed by the planets themselves? These are only some of the questions we asked our guest, Kristina Kislyakova, who is Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna, and works on the evolution of the early solar system rocky planets and atmospheric losses to space among other interesting topics.

What is the effect of clouds on the global and local climate on Earth? How much of the solar radiation can they reflect back to space? How much of the surface heat can they trap? Can we describe and predict how the climate will be in 50 years? What can we know about the climate on Earth ten thousand years ago and how can artificial intelligence help us in this endeavour? Professor Aiko Voigt, from the University of Bonn, will talk about these and other related topics on today’s episode.

What is a catalyst? And what is an enzyme instead? It turns out catalysts are fundamental in speeding up chemical reactions that would otherwise occur in a very, very long time. Enzymes, biological catalysts, take part in a lot of the chemical reactions in our body to keep us running. Can we engineer enzymes to produce specific compounds? Can we do it in an efficient and sustainable way? Do we need special solvents to do so? In this episode we dig into the chemistry of enzymes, how they work, and how we can exploit them to produce compounds that are useful in industry and science. Our guest, Xenia Georgiadou, a PhD candidate at Graz University of Technology will guide us through this fascinating and complex journey.

Who says phase transitions are only diagrams and critical lines? What if they could be understood through something as simple as making a smooth, cheesy sauce? In this episode, Ivan Di Terlizzi, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex systems in Dresden, will tell us all about the physics of cheese in the classic Italian dish Pasta Cacio e Pepe. Don't miss this tasty and brainy episode! Link to the paper: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pof/article/37/4/044122/3345324/Phase-behavior-of-Cacio-e-Pepe-sauce

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents us from pinpointing an electron in real time with arbitrary accuracy. What this means is that if we were to shine light on an electron and excite it, we would not be able to follow its trajectory precisely. And yet, recent years have witnessed the development of so-called ultrafast spectroscopic techniques which allows us to indirectly reconstruct a movie of the elections evolution within a molecule. Peter Puschnig, Professor at University of Graz, Austria, will lead us through this fascinating world of ultrafast spectroscopy to hopefully answer fundamental (and cool) questions about electronic motions in real time.

Neurodegenerative diseases are disorders characterised by a gradual, yet steady, loss or death of neurons, the brain cells, a condition that eventually leads to decline in motor and cognitive functions. Despite our best efforts, some aspects of these diseases are still obscure. Rina Demjaha is a medical doctor and a PhD candidate at the Medical University in Graz, Austria. With her we will explore some of the experimental techniques which are used to identify so-called biomarkers which could lead to an early diagnosis of such diseases.

Johanna Byloff is a PhD candidate at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. In this episode, she will talk about experimental techniques to stick together metals and polymers to obtain flexible, yet resistant, compounds which find applications in electronics, from smartphones to telescopes in orbit around Earth.

How does a star like our Sun actually work? What fuels this giant ball of gas—and how does it change over time? And where do the elements of the periodic table really come from? In this episode, we explore these cosmic questions with our guest, Professor Alexander Shapiro from the University of Graz.

What is biophysics? What does it study, and why is it so difficult to apply physics to predict the behavior of living organisms? Professor Douwe Bonthuis from Graz University of Technology takes us on a journey through the fascinating, yet complex, world of biophysics.Multiscale modeling of aqueous electric double layers:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.3c00307Intrinsic lipid curvatures: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbamem.2021.183709Website with further information:https://www.staff.tugraz.at/bonthuis/

What if we told you there is a fourth state of matter all around us—one that powers neon signs, lights up the aurora and fuels fusion reactors? Christopher Albert, from Graz University of Technology, will help us unravel the mysteries of plasma: why it is so hard to tame, where it hides in nature, and how mastering it could revolutionize the way we think of energy.