Dr Kit Chapman

No, that ship isn’t levitating!!! The position on the horizon and the location of the clouds are creating an optical illusion that makes it look like the ship is flying 30m above the sea!

I mean, look, it’s nonsense historically - Napoleon didn’t defeat an army by shooting the pyramids to make masonry fall on them, nor did he lead a charge (sword swinging) at Borodino and Waterloo. No bird crapped on him while on the throne in Moscow. But it’s hilariously weird.

Napoleon is the most hilarious comedy I have seen in years. So-bad-it’s-good hilarious.

Want to see Napoleon make pig noises and stomp his feet until Josephine will sleep with him? Or scream (at the British) “You only think you’re great because you have boats!” Like a 5 yo? Napoleon is for you.

When you’re just walking your beetle and a random dude starts hitting on you in the street.

You can catch up on what happened so far with my full investigation, here:

undark.org/2023/03/27/a...

Huge. Another retraction for Dias over superconductivity claims… including most of the team (and look at their reason!!!!) but *not* retracted by Ranga Dias.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The view from Falmouth Uni has to be one of the best campus views…

I enjoyed my trip around the world.

The trip:

Country no. 86 for me, 4 on this £500 journey around the world: Sri Lanka!

Annnnnnnd country 85: Oman!

A big shout-out to my student Joe, who asked me to go to a small island to interview people… that was uninhabited. And had no phone signal. And meant a 2 mile walk back in 40 degree heat.

Good morning from… Country 84, Saudi Arabia! Arrived into Dammam last night, and currently having a traditional breakfast as students requested.

First leg is supposed to be a 3 hour layover in Budapest before the true destination.

But we have been stuck on Luton’s tarmac for 45 minutes so far and no sign we are going anywhere…

Leg two: London (Luton) to… ?

This is where the adventure begins.

Showing my students you can go around the world for only £500 in a week. My students have set me journalism assignments at every stop. First leg - Cornwall to London.

I should be celebrating that my first ever computer game got released on Steam.

Instead, some evil anonymous troll cracked it, pirated it, and put it up for free. They stole something that took me two years to make in less than 12 hours.

Two years of work and they stole it.

I hate this world.

No, it is real.

Tomorrow up to Worcester to talk physics. Next week? Huge adventure. I gave my students £500 and told them to fly me around the world to multiple destinations for multiple assignments as a travel writer. Let’s see where they send me…

Social media is a constant reminder that people are inherently evil.

Hey, does anyone remember NFTs?

They worked really well, didn’t they? They totally weren’t a Greater Fool scam.

After a 20-year hiatus, Berkeley Lab - the most successful periodic table fillers in history - are back in the element hunting business.

www.chemistryworld.com/berkeley-lab...

I always find headstones an odd thing. You boil a life down to a few words. Husband. Father. Soldier. None of which truly express the kaleidoscope of brilliance that is a life. It’s like staring at a pit after a fire and making sense of out of charcoal.

Just had a good chat with my friend Yuri Oganessian - the only living person to have an element named after him.

Story will be coming to Chemistry World soon…

Top science journal faced secret attacks from Covid conspiracy theo... One of the world’s most prestigious general science journals, was the target of a two-year long sustained and virulent secret attack by a conspiratorial group of extreme Brexit lobbyists with high-....

Also a big shout-out to my former student Simone for this *Absolutely bonkers* story about COVID-deniers trying to get MI6 to spy on the editors at Nature by accusing them of being Chinese spies…

www.computerweekly.com/news/3665534...

My take on the Nobel prize in chemistry leak:

Keep in mind that finalists are discussed for two meetings before the *final* decision on the day. It is entirely possible quantum dots had been agreed and the final vote was just a formality.

Still a big oopsie, though.

A little spellbook/alchemy guide from the 16th century: a copy of “Isabella Cortese”’s secrets. (Almost certainly written by a man; there was no Isabella Cortese and Cortese is an anagram of ‘secreto’…)

The best way to get all the annoying little jobs in the house done is to have a completely unrelated book deadline.

Little bit of Robert Boyle to start the day.