Minus 269 degrees Celsius, gradually cooling down giant magnets whilst keeping an eye on everything at once: last summer, Regina Grün and Lukas Vogl from FRM II spent a week gaining new insights into the preparation of sample environments at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland.

How many neutrons can fit on a football pitch? And how can a train float upside down? During their visit to the FRM II, the children from the Nachbarschaftshilfe Garching had loads of questions – and at the end, they even got a portion of homemade chocolate ice cream.

For the first time, a research team has used neutrons to track the breakdown of PET plastic by bacterial enzymes at the nanometre scale. The study could lead to faster and more efficient recycling.