Todays physics news: Techno-tipples – bartenders adopt physics-based approach to cocktail making, and more…

Today’s physics news: Techno-tipples – How barmen are aping the ‘Blumenthal’ effect for cocktails with a dash of physics”

“Techno-tipples: How barmen are aping the ‘Blumenthal’ effect for cocktails with a dash of physics”

In this month’s edition of Physics World, Naveen Sinha and David Weitz from Harvard University describe how some top-end bartenders are ditching trial and error for a more clinical approach to cocktail making.
Daily Mail

“Research intelligence – Fanfare for the common front”

The head of the STFC, John Womersley, has promised a ‘new change of tone’ and insisted that the organisation is not fundamentally flawed and need not be a ‘prisoner’ of its past
Times Higher Education

“Research suffers if scientists are forced to marry for money”

European policymakers have been urged to reform the ‘exhausted’ top-down funding mechanisms that force researchers into collaborations, in light of the recent announcement that the European commission will invest £65bn in research and innovation between 2014 and 2020.
Times Higher Education

 ”REF panellists must be absolutely clear: quality in the UK is not in decline”

Adam Tickell, a pro vice-chancellor from the University of Birmingham, has warned that research excellence framework panels must be sure to make absolute rather than relative judgments of submissions to avoid the impression that the quality of UK research base is in decline.
Times Higher Education

“Physicists put earthquakes under the microscope”

Using an atomic force microscope (AFM) to zoom down to nanometre dimensions, researchers in the US have improved our knowledge of the friction between surfaces at geological fault lines. The experiments show that chemical processes can act to bond the surfaces together – a discovery that may lead to a better understanding of how earthquakes are triggered.
Physics World