The UK’s biggest people-powered investigation into household plastic waste.

Tire-wear particles, generated through tire abrasion during driving, represent one of the largest global sources of microplastic pollution, with current annual emissions approaching 6 Tg. Due to their small particle sizes and low mass density, tire-wear particles can become airborne, undergo long-range transport, and potentially influence atmospheric processes. One critical but poorly understood pathway involves the heterogeneous freezing of supercooled cloud droplets, a key process in cloud glaciation and climate regulation. Here, we systematically investigate the ice-nucleating properties of laboratory-generated particles from summer, all-weather, and winter tires. Using optical microscopy as well as Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and Raman spectroscopy, we obtained particle-size distributions (∼100 μm mean diameter) and characterized the surface chemical compositions, confirming close similarity to the pristine tire materials. Ice-nucleation experiments performed with our custom-built IceBox instrument demonstrated that all tire particles consistently elevated the freezing temperatures of supercooled water droplets. The ice-nucleation performances of tire particles are found to be between feldspar and quartz, which are important mineral-based ice-nucleating agents in the atmosphere. Comparable results across all tire types suggest that major components such as rubber polymers or graphitic fillers are responsible for the observed activity. These findings establish tire-wear particles as effective atmospheric ice-nucleating agents, providing a baseline for future studies of environmentally aged tire particles and their potential roles in affecting the climate.

Hannah Fry and Dara Ó Briain investigate nature's most intricate patterns

In 1931, Harvey Elliott White developed a device that traced out the shapes of electron clouds by approximating solutions to the Schrödinger equation

Tire-wear particles, generated through tire abrasion during driving, represent one of the largest global sources of microplastic pollution, with annual emissions approaching 6 million tons. Due to the...

The nucleation of ice from supercooled water droplets plays a critical role across various technological sectors including aviation, power transmission, shipping, and space flight. Despite its importa...

Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers are essential in ensuring the stability and efficiency of numerous scientific, industrial, and medical processes. However, teaching the principles of PID control can be challenging, especially when the introduction focuses on the underlying mathematical framework. To address this, we developed the PingPongPID, a visually engaging and interactive demonstration instrument designed to make the concepts of PID control more accessible to students. The PingPongPID features a colored ping-pong ball suspended within a transparent plastic tube by a fan, the voltage of which is controlled by a microcontroller running a PID algorithm. The ball’s height is measured in real-time by a laser distance sensor, and the system continuously adjusts the fan voltage to maintain a set target height. The PingPongPID also connects to a computer, allowing real-time data logging and visualization through a custom-built Python graphical user interface (GUI). The process of obtaining the three PID gain constants using both the trial-and-error and Ziegler-Nichols methods can be illustrated very nicely with the PingPongPID. In summary, the PingPongPID serves as a powerful educational tool, allowing students to explore both the conceptual and practical aspects of PID control before delving into its mathematical foundations. We provide a complete assembly and user guide for the PingPongPID as well as the codes for the microcontroller and the Python GUI.

Findings may have wide-ranging implications, from the origins of life to the characterisation of technological glasses

“Space ice” contains tiny crystals and is not, as previously assumed, a completely disordered material like liquid water, according to a new study by scientists at UCL and the University of Cambridge.