Why do we rarely see elements in their purest form in nature? Familiar materials to us such as iron, aluminium, gold are almost all derived from the smelting of ores and minerals. It would make our life easier to simply pick the out off the ground and fashion them for use, no?

But life would be impossible if it was...

A recent discussion we had shows student interest in the material sciences. So we quizzed them on what is probably the most ubiquitous space-age material there is - carbon fiber. It's in our airliners, cars, computers, even furniture. But it seems that most people are quite ill-informed on it, irregardless of their interest.

​It's a good thing that we're here to teach...

It seems that 2017 is expected to become an annus mirabilis (latin: miraculous year) in science, particularly in physics. It's only a few weeks ago that the news on the discovery of metallic hydrogen broke out; now we're presented with the possibility of life existing on another star system.

Hopefully this trend keeps up!

What if you can get everything you ever want or need at a relatively small price of your time? I said "relatively" because each person values time differently; a child have all the time in the world, a terminally ill cancer patient have little left.

How much time do you have left? And what have you done with the ones you've spent?

​In 1990, a question was posed to a woman who happens to have the highest recorded IQ score in the world. Her answer sparked a debate among professional mathematicians of the day, and pits common sense against intellectual conventions.

I'm sure she felt goated for the failings of the arrogant eggheads at the time, pun intended...