PhysicsCentral: Podcasts

History and physics enthusiasts can now rejoice as the U.S. government has commissioned the Manhattan Project National Historical Park located at three important sites critical to the World War II-era program.

Birds have an amazing, innate ability to sense where magnetic north lies, and scientists think they're closer than ever to understanding the secrets of their natural compass.

Using particle detectors across the world, physicists are tracking neutrinos emitted from supernovae to better track and understand exploding stars.

Explore the physics that makes film projection possible in all of its various forms.

Outside our galaxy, there's a gigantic gas cloud drifting in our direction. It'll collide with the galaxy in about 30 million years, but astronomers aren't worried.

Introducing quantum weirdness to the world of Minecraft with the  qcraft mod.

Believe it or not, 85 percent of the matter in the universe is missing, unknown, invisible, and rather fittingly known as dark matter. Since the 1930s, the nature of dark matter has eluded our most sensitive telescopes and underground detectors, but as we hear in this week's podcast, that may all be about to change, thanks to some tantalizing data from telescopes in orbit.

Although Mercury is much closer to Earth than even Mars, it's among the most difficult planets to study with space probes due in part to its proximity to the sun. A spacecraft launching next year will endure Mercury's extreme temperatures and gravitational complications to study this mysterious planet.

Shakespeare grew up during the scientific revolution, and it may have directly influenced his works. Some even argue that his plays served as allegories for scientific debates. (Originally published on April 23, 2014).

What can Earth's magnetic field teach us about our planet's past?