Gleb Zilberstein is my guest in this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast. A physicist by training, Zilberstein applies the principles of proteomics to the study of historical objects including Renaissance manuscripts.

He is also a director of Israel-based SpringStyle Tech Design, which has created a special film that lifts proteins from the surfaces of historical objects. Analysis of these proteins provides important information about how those objects were used.

In a recent paper, Zilberstein and colleagues studied protein residues on a well-thumbed book of medical recipes that was published in Germany in 1531. He explains how their analysis provides a new view into how medical practitioners used the book and what sorts of concoctions they were making. Astonishingly, the team found evidence that European readers had access to ingredients derived from hippopotamuses.

Some papers about the application of proteomics to historical research:

• The Scientific Analysis of Renaissance Recipes
• Count Dracula Resurrected
• EVA Technology and Proteomics: A Two-Pronged Attack on Cultural Heritage

The physicist and venture capitalist Alexandra Vidyuk is our guest in this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast. She is the chief executive and founding partner of Beyond Earth Ventures, which provides funding and support to early-stage companies in deep-tech sectors including space, robotics and energy.

In conversation with Physics World’s Margaret Harris, Vidyuk explains how her BSc in applied mathematics and physics and her early career in banking and fintech set her on a path to deep-tech venture capital.

Vidyuk talks about the specific challenges facing deep-tech entrepreneurs and reveals what she looks for when deciding which companies to fund. She also emphasizes the importance of building an organization that understands its customers and can communicate effectively with them.

This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features Brian Pogue, who is professor of biomedical engineering at Dartmouth College in the US. He is also the co-founder of several start-up companies that are developing optics-based systems for medicine.

In conversation with Physics World’s Tami Freeman, Pogue explains that optical technologies underlie many of today’s routine medical procedures. The field of optics is also converging with the world of medical physics, and Pogue talks about exciting new techniques for guidance, dosimetry and in vivo verification of radiation therapy cancer treatments.

• This interview was recorded in association with the journal Physics in Medicine & Biology, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.

This podcast is supported by One Physics, your trusted, local partner in medical physics and radiation safety.

My guest in this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast is Liz Martin, who is sustainability lead at IOP Publishing. We chat about how the scholarly publisher has reduced its carbon emissions by 36% when compared to a 2020 baseline – and the challenges and opportunities for achieving further reductions.

Martin talks about the importance of cooperation and partnerships – both internal and external – to achieving environmental goals. This includes engaging with both suppliers and employees on how to reduce carbon emissions.

IOP Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institute of Physics, which is the professional body and learned society for physics in the UK and Ireland. It produces over 100 scholarly journals, around half of which are published jointly with or on behalf of partner societies and research organizations. Physics World is also brought to you by IOP Publishing.

• You can download a PDF of IOP Publishing’s Sustainability Report 2025 here.

This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features a conversation with Dave Robertson, who was elected member of the UK parliament for Lichfield in 2024. Robertson spent eight years teaching physics after studying the subject at the University of Liverpool. He then worked for a teachers’ union, which inspired him to become a candidate for the Labour Party.

He chats with Physics World’s Matin Durrani about his transition from the classroom to the committee room and how parliament “is a truly bonkers and truly bizarre workplace”.

Robertson has already sponsored three physics-related events at the Palace of Westminster and he talks about his membership of various cross-party parliamentary groups – including those on nuclear energy and space.

Robertson has not forgotten his roots in education and is adamant that the UK must address its nationwide shortage of physics teachers. He also urges physicists to speak out about how they can help address many of the world’s problems, notably climate change.

• You can also read a feature article about Dave Robertson’s career by following this link.

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we hear from a trio of scientists with a common interest in the physics of droplets. Specifically, Joe Forth, Rob Malinowski and Giorgio Volpe share a fascination with droplets that are “animate” – that is, capable of responding to their surroundings in ways that resemble the behaviour of living organisms.

As they explain in the podcast, systems must tick three boxes to qualify as animate. First, they must be active, able to use energy from their environment to do work and perform tasks. Second, they must be adaptive, able to move between different dynamical states in response to changes to their environment or their own internal states. Finally, they must be autonomous, able to process multiple inputs and choose how to respond to them without intervention from the outside world.

Incorporating all these behaviours into a droplet – or a system of many droplets – is challenging. The boundary between autonomous and non-autonomous systems is proving especially hard to overcome, and Volpe, Malinowski and Forth have a friendly disagreement over whether any droplet-based system has managed it yet.

Part of the challenge, they say, is that the field crosses disciplinary borders. Although Volpe thinks the community of droplet researchers is getting better at finding a common vocabulary for discussions, Forth jokes that it is still the case that “the chemists are scared of physics, the physicists are scared of chemists, everyone is scared of biology”. The potential rewards of overcoming these fears are great, however, with possible future applications of animate droplets ranging from consumer products such as deodorant to oil spill clean-up.

This discussion is based on a Perspective article that Volpe (a professor of soft matter in the chemistry department at University College London, UK), Malinowski (a research fellow in soft matter physics in the same department) and Forth (a colloid scientist and lecturer in the chemistry department at the University of Liverpool, UK) wrote for the journal EPL, which sponsors this episode of the podcast.

“Surround sound for biological cells,” is how Luke Cox describes the ultrasound technology that Impulsonics has developed to solve the “unsticking problem” in biomedical science. Cox is co-founder and chief executive of UK-based Impulsonics, which spun-out of the University of Bristol in 2023.

He is also my guest in this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast. He explains why living cells grown in a petri dish tend to stick together, and why this can be a barrier to scientific research and the development of new medical treatments.

The system uses an array of ultrasound transducers to focus sound so that it frees-up and manipulates cells in a way that does not alter their biological properties. This is unlike chemical unsticking processes, which can change cells and impact research results.

We also chat about Cox’s career arc from PhD student to chief executive and explore opportunities for physicists in the biomedical industry.

The following articles are mentioned in the podcast:

• “Materials probed by ultrasound…” podcast with Bruce Drinkwater
• “Portable imaging system targets eye diseases…” podcast with Siloton
• “Holographic acoustic tweezers could be used to create 3D displays” research done in Bruce Drinkwater’s lab

Later this year, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its huge experiments will shutdown for the High Luminosity upgrade. When complete in 2030, the particle-collision rate in the LHC will be increased by a factor of 10 and the experiments will be upgraded so that they can better capture and analyse the results of these collisions. This will allow physicists to study particle interactions at unprecedented precision and could even reveal new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Earlier this year, however, the UK government announced that it will no longer fund the upgrade of the LHCb experiment on the LHC, which is run by a collaboration of more than 1700 physicists worldwide. The UK had promised to contribute about £50 million to the upgrade – which is a significant chunk of the overall cost.

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast I am in conversation with the particle physicist Tim Gershon, who is based at the UK’s University of Warwick. Gershon is spokesperson-elect for the LHCb collaboration and is playing a leading role in the upgrade.

Gershon explains that UK participation and leadership has been crucial for the success of LHCb and cautions that the future of the experiment and the future of UK particle physics have been imperilled by the funding cut.

We also chat about recent discoveries made by LHCb and look forward to what new physics the experiment could find after the upgrade.