Our perception of time is something we take for granted. It drags. It goes too fast. It’s always there in the background, ticking away. But the means by which we measure, interpret and remember the flow…
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Australia faces many big challenges – in the economy, health, energy, water, climate change, infrastructure, sustainable agriculture and the preservation of our precious biodiversity. To meet these, we…
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams…
We know a lot about how humans evolved. But when it comes to our planet, we’re on shakier ground. Inert (nonreactive) gases, such as helium, neon and argon, trapped inside the mantle (Earth’s thickest…
The phrases “real world scientific progress” and “the power of online games” are strange bedfellows. Yet surprisingly, they found themselves thrust together in the media last week due to the publication…
The bartender says, “We don’t serve your kind in here” A faster-than-light neutrino walks into a bar … The media is champing at the bit to proclaim a discovery of faster-than-light travel by a subatomic…
Scientists – myself included – are increasingly frustrated by the outmoded academic publishing system. The situation as it stands made sense in the pre-internet era, when one needed a printing press to…
The world is currently embroiled in on- and offline discussions about changes that are affecting the lives of millions. The subject is not climate change, the global financial crisis, political upheaval…
This week, a committee of six scientists (including Dr Enzo Boschi, formerly president of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) and one government official, whose role was to advise…
We humans had sex with Neandertals; we bonked the relatives of Neandertals; we got down and dirty with members of an as-yet unrecognised African population; and we, of course, got jiggy with each other…
You might want to look up. Or maybe not. At some point between now and Saturday, a 6.5 tonne, bus-sized NASA satellite will burst through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into fiery chunks that could land…
We are consumers of software that is ever more capable, diverse and clever. Our Google queries, our Facebook experience, our ability to play HD movies on our iPads, and the convenience of reading emails…
The brand new launch system announced by NASA last week has received wide mainstream media coverage – and why wouldn’t it? It is a plan for a giant rocket, after all. The proposed Space Launch System (SLS…
The information revolution is hurtling towards Antarctica in the shape of a 20 centimetre cube weighing less than 10 kilograms. It can’t come soon enough. Not because Antarctic scientists (numbering more…
So it’s finally here: Google Wallet, a free Android app that turns your (Google) smartphone into a mobile payment system, launched today. To do this, the company has partnered with Citi, MasterCard, First…
How worried should we be about cyber warfare? The latest amendment to the ANZUS treaty between the US and Australia, announced at the end of last week suggests it’s a genuine threat to the national security…
On Saturday, hundreds of protestors congregated in the Wall Street area of New York at the start of a protest dubbed #OccupyWallStreet. The aim? To “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens…
We have been fascinated and repelled by fire for millennia. It’s the defining feature of humanity and it has powered all cultures. But our relationship with this fundamental element, whether wild or contained…
A stroll down the personal growth aisle of the bookstore tells us, among other things, Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps. The answer, as authors Alan and Barbara Pease delightedly inform their…
Children and teenagers today do all the things that children and teenagers have more or less always done – they talk to their friends, have dinner with the family, and watch TV. However, as even the casual…
It’s one of the most famous and evocative images in cinematic history – Luke Skywalker gazing out at the twin suns of Tatooine as they set, in the original Star Wars movie, A New Hope. Such a view would…
During a lunch in the summer of 1950, physicists Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller and Herbert York were chatting about a recent New Yorker cartoon depicting aliens abducting trash cans in flying saucers. Suddenly…
A recent announcement by the research director of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) indicated the Higgs boson – often referred to as the “God particle” – has been excluded at 95% confidence…
This week, the American National Labour Review Board ruled to reinstate five workers fired for complaining about a co-worker on Facebook. The board decided writing about work on Facebook was equivalent…
This month’s launch of the .xxx internet domain, a new section of the internet dedicated to pornography and erotica, is getting people hot and bothered. The global body coordinating internet addresses…