In a rare double, another Nobel Prize has gone to scientists who build models. The 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel for their work that enables…
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This time the pundits were right. The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics was indeed awarded to the discovery of the Higgs boson. Peter Higgs and François Englert shared the prize for suggesting the mechanism…
The shooting death of an Islamic cleric in Mombasa and the unrest that followed over the weekend as young Muslims torched a church and clashed with police are a reminder, just two weeks after the Westgate…
The 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to Thomas Südhof, James Rothman and Randy Schekman for their discoveries of how the transport mechanism in cells works. Cells are the basic units of life…
Some of the top institutions in Europe have dropped down the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2013. The UK and US continue to dominate while leaders in France, Germany, Netherlands…
The term “carbon capture and storage” seems only to appear when shortly followed by “not commercially proven” or “in development”. But construction has now begun on what will be the world’s first commercial…
If you think it’s enough of a chore trying to stop thieves stealing your credit card details and hacking your Facebook, imagine trying to stop them getting into your pancreas. Advances in healthcare mean…
A volcano in Indonesia may be the location of a massive “mystery eruption” that has perplexed volcanologists for decades, according to a new study. The eruption occurred in 1257, and it could also be one…
Global warming is “unequivocal”, according to the fifth IPCC report which, after six years in preparation, delivers a detailed picture of the science behind climate change. In the strongest language yet…
If you’ve ever tried spinning in circles while looking up to the sky, you’ll know the accompanying dizziness that can follow. But what stops ballet dancers, who pirouette endlessly for a living, from falling…
You get hauled out of bed in the morning not just because of an alarm clock. We are genetically encoded with a 24-hour (circadian) body clock that allows us to live in harmony with our environment. But…
There is an assumption that children perform better amongst highly achieving peers. High class achievement might be thought to indicate better teaching, or to induce academic competition between students…
According to British historian Arnold Toynbee, “History is just one damned thing after another.” Or is it? That is the question Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut in Storrs tries to answer…
Five years on from Lehman Brothers’ collapse and “where did it all go wrong?” analysis is all the rage. Answers have varied: poor regulation, malicious bankers, dozy politicians, greedy homeowners, and…
How do you get to know one of Earth’s most mysterious creatures? By looking at its earwax, according to a group of US researchers. Analysing the contents of blue whales’ ears, through a process similar…
On the same day that the latest instalment of the Jurassic Park film series has been confirmed, a study published in the journal PLOS One has detailed experiments that seem to demonstrate once and for…
Suffering a miscarriage can be a very distressing experience but for many women their next pregnancy is a normal one. For women, however, who suffer recurrent miscarriage, where they have three or more…
It’s a familiar scene across many towns and cities on a Friday and Saturday night - revellers in full swing, up for a night of drinking and dancing. But a few hours later another picture starts to emerge…
Perceptions of how well most major British institutions are run have plunged over the past three decades. The 30th British Social Attitudes report, published today, reports decreases in public satisfaction…
Father’s involvement in raising a child, on average, brings good news. It leads to lower child mortality and better social, psychological and educational outcomes. So why do some men choose not to invest…
What did you achieve by the time you were 15? For most, a summary of our first decade-and-a-half of existence would not make for a bestselling biography. But one teenager celebrating a significant birthday…
A previously unknown canyon has been discovered in Greenland, hidden beneath the ice. It is at least 750 kilometres long. To put that in perspective, imagine a ten kilometre wide gorge, up to 800 metres…
“Mini brains” with separate working regions have been grown using stem cells in the lab for the first time. They have similarities to an embryo in the womb up to nine weeks. Under the right conditions…
Human foetuses begin to hear sounds outside the womb at about 27 weeks. But whether foetuses can learn from these sounds in ways that shape speech perception and development during infancy has remained…
Regardless of economic strength or level of development, countries with substantial fossil fuel resources are almost certain to be heavy carbon polluters – a phenomenon dubbed the “carbon curse”. A study…