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Margaret Harris

I'm an online editor at Physics World. I write about applied physics research, and generally "fly the flag" for the practical and commercial side of physics within the Physics World team. I joined Physics World in 2008, shortly after completing my PhD in experimental atomic physics at Durham University, but I’m not from these parts originally: I grew up in Kansas and did my undergraduate degree in the US. Aside from industry physics, I'm interested in science policy and every now and then I get nostalgic about soldering circuits and fiddling around with lasers. Outside work I enjoy hiking, reading about history and becoming less incompetent at karate.

Author archive

A breezy tour of what gaseous materials do for us

Margaret Harris reviews It’s a Gas: the Magnificent and Elusive Elements that Expand Our World by Mark Miodownik

Twisted carbon nanotubes store more energy than lithium-ion batteries

Mechanical energy storage could be a safer way of powering some medical devices

Image of a tornado and dark clouds against a bright horizon

Why North America has a ‘tornado alley’ and South America doesn’t

There’s a scientific reason why Twisters is set in the US Great Plains rather than Argentina, and it has to do with the Gulf of Mexico

Photo of Christopher Eichler giving a talk in a large conference hall in front of a slide depicting quantum circuits

How to get the errors out of quantum computing

Last week’s Quantum 2.0 conference laid out possible complementary approaches to the field’s biggest challenge

Photo of the moderator and five panellists in front of a blue backdrop

Quantum
Blog

Bringing the second quantum revolution to the rest of the world

A panel discussion about quantum technologies in low and middle-income countries offers perspectives on how to overcome barriers to participation

A 1950s children's board game called Uranium Rush

When the world went wild for uranium: tales from the history of a controversial element

Margaret Harris reviews Chain Reactions: a Hopeful History of Uranium by Lucy Jane Santos

Photo of a starling in flight with its unfurled wings catching the light against a black background

Birds save up to 25% of their energy when they follow a leader

Study on starlings is the first to measure birds’ energy use directly rather than inferring it from other measurements

Image of Mars' Olympus Mons volcano, taken from above, shows a patch of bluish frost in an area sheltered by the volcano's caldera

Mars has frost-covered mountains at its equator but no lakes at its poles

Two new studies reveal where the red planet’s water is, and where it (probably) isn’t

Montage of four photos showing a dragonfly, the tail of a whale rising out of water, a bat and a hummingbird

Simple equation predicts how quickly animals flap their wings

Relationship between mass, wing area and wingbeat frequency holds true for insects, bats, birds, whales and even a flapping robot

Composite image of Arrokoth, a lumpy object that resembles a flattened snowman, superimposed on a selection of ball-and-stick diagrams for sugar and related molecules and a photograph showing distant stars and galaxies. The image also includes a graph of Arrokoth's colour slope over time.

Scientists identify a ‘sugar world’ beyond Neptune

The surface of a Kuiper Belt object called Arrokoth is rich in glucose, ribose and other sweet molecules

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Author

Margaret Harris

Author archive

A breezy tour of what gaseous materials do for us

Twisted carbon nanotubes store more energy than lithium-ion batteries

Why North America has a ‘tornado alley’ and South America doesn’t

How to get the errors out of quantum computing

Bringing the second quantum revolution to the rest of the world

When the world went wild for uranium: tales from the history of a controversial element

Birds save up to 25% of their energy when they follow a leader

Mars has frost-covered mountains at its equator but no lakes at its poles

Simple equation predicts how quickly animals flap their wings

Scientists identify a ‘sugar world’ beyond Neptune

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Author

Margaret Harris

Author archive