Over the past few months our planet has been impacted by an increasing number of solar explosions that have erupted from the sun’s surface. Even though next year’s predicted solar maximum – the period…
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Neuroscience: the word oozes sophistication and intelligence – the very qualities we might want to nurture in our students, our children, our general populace. Maybe that’s why many people involved in…
You can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their face. From a glance, we can glean information about a person’s emotional state, sex, age, ethnicity, where their attention is focused and, of…
A new study out of Michigan State University and published in the Annals of Behavioural Medicine could shed some light on how to manage our motivation to exercise – by training with people that are fitter…
A young child looked up in the sky, And said, “It’s so blue, Mum, but why?” You see, blue scatters more, (There’s this power of 4), So it rarely comes straight to your eye. – Author unknown Most of what…
And so the battle for the future of the internet rages on. The focus this time is not on WikiLeaks, cybercrime treaties, or privacy controls, but the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The ITU…
Before this week, palaeontologists believed the earliest known dinosaurs were small bipedal creatures that lived 230 million years ago in South America. This “oldest known dinosaur” floor proved quite…
In a study published today in the Royal Society’s journal Biology Letters, my colleagues and I ask if there is any validity in judgements of sexual faithfulness made from the faces of unfamiliar men and…
The Curiosity rover has landed on Mars, driven around, started its scientific mission and, as of 4am today (AEDT), started reporting integrated science results. In a news conference at the American Geophysical…
In an announcement today, NASA poured cold water on rumours that its Curiosity rover had found life on Mars. Curiosity found evidence that it had landed on an ancient riverbed, and it identified some interesting…
As a cosmologist, I often carry around a universe or two in my pocket. Not entire, infinitely large universes, but maybe a few billion light years or so across. Enough to be interesting. Of course, these…
How did you get to work today? I walked to the station, caught a train, then walked to a bus stop and hopped on the 891 express. All this time, while I was travelling, I moved in space – in fact a lot…
Rearing young is a costly business that often affects an individual’s own future survival or reproduction prospects. And so it makes sense for individuals to find ways to ensure the energy they spend on…
Whenever I’m telling students or people at conferences about Mercury, I always describe it as the “heavy metal” planet. Many things on this closest planet to the sun are extreme, from its 88-Earth-day…
As social creatures, non-verbal communication through facial expression is important in portraying emotions – and because of this, it’s interpreted rapidly and accurately. Regardless of culture, defined…
Astronomers have discovered a new, enormous black hole that could change our understanding of how galaxies evolve. Holding the mass of 17 billion suns, the black hole at the centre of the NGC 1277 galaxy…
Chances are you’ve heard about 3D printing – or additive manufacturing as it’s otherwise known: a process that turns computer-aided designs into three-dimensional, real-world objects with a range of uses…
Don’t read technology blogs? Then a new innovation in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMPORGs) may be passing you by. Perhaps, like me, such games have never been of much interest to you…
Radiocarbon dating has transformed our understanding of the past 50,000 years. Professor Willard Libby produced the first radiocarbon dates in 1949 and was later awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts…
The search for life in extreme environments is an exploration not only of the robustness of earthly life, but also of our origins. And perhaps the biggest question here is whether the earth is a unique…
As a psychologist – I received my PhD in clinical psychology – I have long been concerned by the problematic reputation of psychology in the public eye. Our besieged public standing has made it difficult…
What do Casper the Friendly Ghost, Harry Potter and H.G Wells’ Griffin all have in common? The answer, of course, is “the ability to become invisible”. And these three characters weren’t the first to have…
A couple of months ago, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki posted the latest in a series of four papers claiming the proof of a long-standing problem in mathematics – the abc conjecture. The announcement…
When Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” hit newsstands in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic, the reaction was predictably vociferous. The essay itself – a 4,175 word editorial…
Intelligence is our most complex characteristic. Some would even say it defines us, setting us apart from other primates. And now, a new study – published this week by Hennady P. Shulha and colleagues…