Do robins use quantum mechanics to navigate?

Hello, friends! and a warm welcome to newcomers – it’s lovely to have you.

The first lecture in this week’s edition starts in an hour, so let’s go!

🍿 online talks and events 🐧

All times are GMT.

Tuesday 10 December

Let’s twist again: Dr Jess Wade and rethinking the technologies and scientific careers of the future, online lecture by the Royal Society, 18.30, free: Physicist (and writer of more than 2,000 Wikipedia bios about female scientists) Dr Jess Wade talks about how chiral materials – whose properties can be ‘tuned’ to particular optical, electronic and quantum properties – will present transformative technological opportunities.

Wednesday 11 December

The Universe, probably, hybrid lecture by Imperial College London, 17.30, free: Physics professor Daniel Mortlock discusses the role of statistics in making sense of the Universe, and how he’s using such methods to hunt down the most distant quasars. Fans of Bayes’ theorem (and I know you’re out there), form an orderly queue.

(For future fans of Bayes, here’s a fun introduction to the centuries-old statistical method that helps us solve modern problems, such as testing for disease or finding lost aircraft.)

Thursday 12 December

Spying on volcanoes from space, online lecture by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, 18.00, free: PhD student Ben Ireland describes how satellites are helping us monitor almost every one of the Earth’s ~1,300 volcanoes in real time, and how we’re using satellite imagery and new techniques to better understand volcanoes and their eruptions.

🌠 in a sky near you… 🔭

Multicoloured meteors: This Saturday, if you have the good fortune to have access to a large swathe of sky away from light pollution, treat yourself to what NASA describes as one of the most reliable annual meteor showers, the Geminids.

The Geminids are unusual in that they originate not from the debris of a comet, but from bits of an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. The meteors themselves are bright, can come in different colours, and pretty frequent – under perfect conditions you could see about 120 an hour.

* Activates meteor shower drill * Once you’ve got to your clear patch of sky, give it about half an hour to let your eyes adjust to the dark. The meteors appear to come from the constellation Gemini, which at 8pm in the UK will be in the low eastern sky, but can be seen anywhere (in fact, you’ll have a better chance of spotting them away from Gemini). Pack a flask of tea, and wait.

Earthlings in more urban settings (fist bump) may miss the shower, but if they look slightly higher than Gemini, they can catch the Moon and Jupiter about three fingers (at arm’s length) apart. They’ll travel across the sky in this tight formation overnight.

🐦 closer to Earth 👀

Keep eyes out for robins: They’re arriving from Europe over the winter months, but how they find their way has been something of a mystery. We know that some animals use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, but how does the tiny robin detect such a weak signal?

Researchers suggest that a protein in the bird’s eye may be using a quantum effect that helps it sense the field. This video by Nature (featuring one of the most delightfully enthusiastic scientists you’ll ever see) clearly lays out the science.

💫 we need answers

Last week I asked:

The answer is… the letter ‘A’. Add a ‘g’, and you get Ag, the chemical symbol for silver. Add ‘u’, and you get Au, the same for gold. Adding an ‘s’ creates As, the chemical symbol for the poison arsenic.

🤔 until next week…

It’s another one from the archives today. Spot the connection:

• Aptenodytes forsteri = books that can be picked up and enjoyed by anyone

• Fratercula arctica = books for children and young teens

• Coccinella septempunctata = books for toddlers and young children

• Pelecanus onocrotalus = affordable non-fiction for a mass audience

What links these four?

Answer comes next week. See you then! x