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Inspiring the next generation of scientists in the North West is a challenge, one that has been made a little bit easier thanks to the donation of numerous pieces of experimental equipment by staff from the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC’s) Daresbury Laboratory to the Catalyst Discovery Centre in Cheshire.

STFC’s Central Laser Facility is host to a range of advanced laser systems that are super fast, super precise and super intense. A multi-national community of chemists, biologists and physicists are using them to unlock a wealth of solutions to today’s and tomorrow’s problems, from studying cancer cells to future clean energy.

Our Daresbury Laboratory is asking Year 9 students to tell us their answers! In the 2013 School Science Prize, students must write 500 words on ‘Why I love Science’.

Nuclear physicists at the ISOLDE radioactive-beam facility at CERN, including a number from the universities of York and Manchester, have for the first time measured the radioactive properties of astatine, the rarest element on earth.

Experimental results obtained using the Gemini laser in STFC’s Central Laser Facility and published in Nature Communications are the first to demonstrate that laser light reflected from a ultrathin foil mirror moving close to the speed of light can be upshifted in energy, a demonstration of one of Einstein’s special relativity concepts first published in his ‘On the electrodynamics of moving bodies’ 1905 paper.

Existing theories on the shape and structure of atomic nuclei have been put to the test as an international team of nuclear physicists have discovered that some can be ‘pear’ shaped. This research, co-funded by STFC at the ISOLDE radioactive beam facility at CERN, has been published as the front cover story for prestigious journal, Nature, 9 May 2013

Budding young entrepreneurs from across the North West faced a panel of judges at the STFC Daresbury Laboratory today, for the area final of the 50th Young Enterprise Company Programme competition.

Less than a year after the decision to site the revolutionary Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in Southern Africa and Australia, the SKA Organisation has opened its new international headquarters.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has today (3 May 2013) signed an agreement that makes the UK an associate member of FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) currently under construction next to the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, in Darmstadt, Germany.

The world’s largest science experiment, the Large Hadron Collider (the LHC), and the man behind the Higgs particle theory, are coming to Belfast as part of a week-long public exhibition organised by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and hosted by Queen’s University.

A subtle difference between matter and antimatter has been observed for the first time by the LHCb experiment at CERN. The observation has been made in the neutral Bs meson system, and submitted for publication on 24 April. This work forms part of studies to understand why the Universe only contains matter when we believe that matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the Big Bang.

The new UK particle accelerator VELA (Versatile Electron Linear Accelerator) has achieved a significant electron acceleration milestone, which heralds exciting new opportunities for industry to apply the latest particle accelerator technology to its most critical commercial challenges.

UK scientists have won a major £10m Czech contract to develop new laser technologies for use by business and science.

STFC is offering £1.5M to fund a range of projects from short feasibility studies to large developmental projects that will use STFC funded research to solve key challenges in the Energy sector.

STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory is hosting the original prototype magnet that was used to develop Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in hospitals, in preparation for its use in an exciting new project to study the rarest elements known to exist.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects all cloven-hoofed animals, both domesticated and wild, and is one of the most contagious of animal diseases.

STFC has announced a call for applications to the Projects Research and Development scheme (PRD).

The Science Minister David Willetts launched the first ever Higher Apprenticeship in Space Engineering at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) today (15 March 2013). The apprenticeship has been developed by Loughborough College in association with the National Space Academy.

Latest results from CERN further reinforce that the particle discovered last year is a Higgs boson.

Scientists across the UK are today proudly celebrating the monumental achievement of the completion of ALMA – the most complex ground-based telescope in existence. The telescope is being officially opened during an inauguration ceremony in Chile (14:30 GMT 13 March 2013) - the result of two decades of work from institutions all over the world, including in the UK.