Kathmandu is dusty, dirty and very loud. Power cuts are a daily problem and Internet connectivity is patchy. But in Nepal’s biggest university at the heart of the city, one ambitious scientist has been trying to boost the country’s physics research. Thanks to his efforts, and with support from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Narayan Adhikari’s students are now producing a steady stream of high-level papers, published in the world’s most prestigious journals.

Read the story: Developing world: Far-flung physics