Last week, Chinese internet users noticed the two Mandarin characters for “truth” could not be searched on Sina Weibo, the most popular microblogging platform in China. On July 12,Tom Philips, Shanghai…
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Science + Tech – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 5851 - 5875 of 6591 articles
For more than 50 years, sport scientists have used a variety of physical tests to try and identify those exceptional athletes who walk among us. Despite most countries having some sort of athlete talent…
Last week, scientists using one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Cameras announced the discovery of a small moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto - the fifth satellite discovered in orbit around…
The July 4 discovery of a particle that closely resembles the Higgs boson opens a new era in science: it should help us understand some fundamental mysteries, such as how microscopic particles attain their…
Vibrators have been causing a buzz for as long as they’ve existed: sometimes this happens behind closed doors, and sometimes in the public sphere. But as the new film Hysteria shows, there’s still fascination…
After the recent re-ignition of allegations against seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, many in professional cycling had hoped for a quiet year on the doping front. But, it seems, the Tour…
Humans are fallible. Deciding who has won a tennis game or a sprint race can come down to a millimetre-accurate decision. So when an Olympic gold medal is on the line, it’s no wonder we turn to electronics…
My ANU colleague John Rayner’s excellent recent article on the physics of music seemed to touch a nerve with the readership of The Conversation. Although beautifully framed by the personal and anecdotal…
London 2012 is already seeing fierce competition for meme supremacy. Memes, especially in the form of captioned images - or image macros - are an increasingly mainstream form by which people comment on…
As the Tour de France enters its final week, riders have already negotiated some of the toughest climbs in Europe, and have some major climbs still to go. So what makes some of those riders successful…
We once thought no-one could run a mile in less than four minutes – and yet the current world record stands at three minutes, 43 seconds. So will records keep tumbling as people get fitter and technology…
“And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.” William Gibson, Count…
Blood is thicker than water when it comes to being a team player – at least if you’re a bird in outback Australia. So shows a new study I was involved in, published this week in the journal Proceedings…
Does the recent announcement by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) of a new code of practice to prevent bill shock for “long-suffering telco customers”, and improve product marketing…
What’s not to love about bananas? Besides being a wildly popular dessert fruit, they are the staple food of millions of people in developing countries. The current edition of Nature carries a paper that…
If an entire forest falls and its occupants approach extinction, does anybody hear it? Since for the vast majority of species, the answer is most likely no, we decided to be proactive and recently published…
My wife Theresa represents many things for me – in addition to being my partner, I see her as a 17cm-long quarter-wavelength resonator (which I hope you’ll understand and agree with by the end of this…
Oscar Pistorius – the South African double amputee athlete known as Blade Runner – will run at the at the London Olympics. Until a week ago, his hopes of inclusion in the South African Olympic team looked…
More than 1,000 years of formal university learning and teaching does not change quickly, or without a struggle. But we are starting to see some key tech trends engaging staff and students – and therein…
Of all violent videogames, first-person shooters are viewed as the biggest problem because of the perspective taken during gaming: the first-person standpoint makes it seem as if the player is performing…
There is perhaps no greater sporting rivalry than that between Great Britain and Australia – it’s like the little brother trying to knock off his older sibling in any pursuit possible, simply for the glory…
What is a quantum technology? Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that explains the behaviour of matter and energy at the atomic scale. So does “quantum technology’’ just mean technology based on…
“TWANG! It’s been a …” There is perhaps no song as quintessentially Beatle-ish as A Hard Day’s Night - it just bubbles with unbridled enthusiasm and joy. And in my mind, there’s no other opening chord…
This expert reaction comes via the Australian Science Media Centre: CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) has this evening announced that the long-sought Higgs boson probably exists, after…
Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, have announced the observation of a new particle widely thought to be the elusive Higgs boson. Announced via a live two-way video…