Stories by Jennifer Ouellette

On the latest episode of the Know Brainer Podcast, I chatted with host Christina Ochoa about Self- Experimentation, Time and Identity, and Body Fluids in Art.

The British are coming! The British are coming! To Manh(a)ttan, that is. This week’s episode (“The Second Coming”) finds our intrepid community of physicists eagerly awaiting their own British invasion: the arrival of an elite contingent of some of the greatest scientific minds in Britain, come to join forces with the Americans (and European refugees) [...]

This week on Virtually Speaking Science, I chatted with Caltech’s Spiros Michalakis about quantum computing, quantum information, and when we might expect Google to have a quantum computer inside every self-driving flying car.

Admit it: haven’t you always longed to experience what it’s like to be a proton at the subatomic scale? No? Just Jen-Luc Piquant then.

Things are heating up all over in this week’s episode of Manh(a)ttan (“The New World”). Not only is the X10 nuclear reactor in Tennessee firing up, romantic sparks are flying on several fronts, setting up a metaphorical chain reaction among all the convoluted personal relationships that one suspects will ultimately go critical.

The folks at TED-Ed asked for my recommendations regarding Math 101: A reading list for lifelong learners. I also have a post up this week at the NOVA physics blog: Quantum Physicists Catch a Pilot Wave.

The race for the first atomic bomb heats up, and we learn more about the human cost in terms of safety and security protocols on this week’s episode of Manh(a)ttan.

Science Friday LIVE came to Caltech on Wednesday night, for a fun-filled evening exploring the intersection between Hollywood and science. Fortunately, you can listen to the audio if you missed the event.

If you were wondering how Manh(a)ttan was planning to up the stakes yet again after the death of Sid Liao and the ensuing fallout, the latest episode (“A New Nuclear Cosmology”) should address that curiosity, as sins both past and present take center stage — and if a few immediate consequences may have been temporarily [...]

Summer is winding down, but the ongoing drought in much of the southwestern US shows no sign of abating. In fact, it’s so dry in California (where we live) that the ground is literally rising.

The residents of the Los Alamos base camp receive a special visitor in this week’s episode of Manh(a)ttan — none other than Niels Bohr, he of the infamous model of the atom and one of the unquestioned giants of 20th century physics.

This week on Virtually Speaking Science, I chatted with astrophysicist Katie Freese, author of a new book, The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter.

Last week’s episode of Manh(a)ttan closed with a bombshell — the shooting of physicist Sid Liao, who was being interrogated on suspicion of leaking classified documents — and as expected, this week’s episode (“The Hive”) dealt with the fallout from that cataclysmic event, both personally and professionally.

The big news in space science this week: the Rosetta spacecraft catches its comet! Here’s what comes next. Why does it take 10 years to catch a comet?

(Note: If you missed the pilot episode of Manh(a)ttan, you can read my recap here. And be forewarned: spoilers lie ahead!) Loyalties are tested, and bad bargains are struck in this week’s episode of Manh(a)ttan (“The Prisoner’s Dilemma”).

Looking for a few good popular math books? In the latest New York Times Book Review, I look at five terrific recent ones: Jordan Ellenberg's How Not to Be Wrong, David J.

Jen-Luc Piquant was eagerly anticipating the premiere of the new series, Manh(a)ttan, on WGN America, a historic 13-episode (to start) drama set at Los Alamos in the early days of the Manhattan Project.

Meet the 2014 recipient of the AIP Gemant Award, my own Time Lord, Sean Carroll. "Science isn’t a separate kind of human endeavor, utterly different from other things that we do," said Carroll.

It’s been a busy week on the physics front, so let’s get the shameless self-promotion out of the way upfront. I chatted with NPR’s Arun Rath on Weekend Edition about my recent New Scientist article on digital history and London’s Old Bailey.  The Open Notebook interviewed me and several other physics-centric science writers about tackling [...]

Note: We’re pleased to feature a guest post by former Cocktail Party Physics co-blogger Ann (Lee) Kottner. Jennifer has graciously given me space to ask for some help from the science writing and STEM academic and post-ac community.

This week, the marvelous documentary about the discovery of the Higgs boson, Particle Fever, became available on iTunes. It’s well worth a download.

It’s Fourth of July weekend in the US, so our American readers are hopefully enjoying the long weekend away from the Internet. For everyone else, Jen-Luc Piquant has her usual round of nifty physics-related links gleaned from the past week of Web surfing.

Confirmed: That Was Definitely the Higgs Boson Found at LHC — you know, in case you were still wondering. Related: New result from LHC strengthens the case that the Higgs interacts with both types of particles in the Standard Model.

It’s the physics story that just won’t die. BICEP2 was back in the news yet again as the collaborators finally published their much-anticipated peer-reviewed paper, prompting headlines like this: Astronomers Hedge on Big Bang Detection Claim.  Okay, so maybe they had dust in their eyes but they reaffirmed ripples in time in their published paper, [...]