The Bárðarbunga (or Bardarbunga) volcano has erupted, evoking memories of the 2010 Icelandic ash cloud that caused chaos across European and North American air routes. Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist at…
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The investigation of the hack that gave the world access to hundreds of nude celebrity pictures identified another massive gap in online security. Given Apple’s reputation of being among the more secure…
Some species of dinosaur were astoundingly enormous compared to anything alive on land today, which becomes obvious the moment you stand in the shadow of their skeletons in a museum. This remains one reason…
Access to research is limited worldwide by the high cost of subscription journals, which force readers to pay for their content. The use of scientific research in new studies, educational material and…
The world’s most popular gay social networking app, Grindr, is having a tough time. William Saponaro Jr is suing its developers for negligence, after he was arrested for sexual assault and endangering…
Daily interactions require bargaining, be it for food, money or even making plans. These situations inevitably lead to a conflict of interest as both parties seek to maximise their gains. To deal with…
Every year, 300,000 children are born with sickle-cell disease, primarily in Africa and India. It is a genetic disorder that causes some blood cells to become abnormally shaped. The result is that those…
The powerhouse of internet virality, 4chan, has achieved notoriety, and in a spectacular way. The release of hundreds of images claiming to show a pantheon of celebrities in various compromising, or at…
Recent reports of celebrities having nude or risqué photos of themselves leaked online highlights the serious risk of hackers getting access to our personal pictures. While many of us take inane and uninteresting…
Last week, the eyes of volcanologists – and presumably a few nervous pilots – were fixed on Iceland. But unexpectedly, the volcanic eruption that made headlines happened on the other side of the world…
Brain-training programmes are all the rage. They are part of a growing digital brain-health industry that earned more than US$1 billion in revenue in 2012 and is estimated to reach US$6 billion by 2020…
The Conversation organised a public question-and-answer session on Reddit in which Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, explained why searching for intelligent life is so important and…
As the UK’s largest gaming festival, Insomnia, wrapped up its latest event on August 25, I watched a short piece of BBC Breakfast news reporting from the festival. The reporter and some of the interviewees…
Scientists have proposed a way to monitor glaucoma using a tiny device implanted in the eye. Readings from the device could be monitored by a smartphone. The technology could help prevent some people from…
There is much excitement about Rosetta at the moment. The European Space Agency’s spacecraft has already made a successful rendezvous with a comet and the images that are being transmitted back are simply…
Over the past few months, the Android platform developed by Google and based on the Linux operating system has been having a difficult time. Hackers, with malicious intent and those without, have been…
You would normally expect objects that float in water to move in the same direction as waves. But now we can force floating objects to move in the opposite direction. This unexpected effect nicknamed a…
During World War II, residents on the islands in the southern Pacific Ocean saw heavy activity by US planes, bringing in goods and supplies for the soldiers. In many cases, this was the islanders’ first…
It’s summer and Facebook news feeds are awash with idyllic, sun-drenched snapshots of family life. This kind of “sharenting” is bigger than ever but we rarely stop to think about whether it is appropriate…
The growing extent to which our day-to-day infrastructure is computer-controlled and internet-connected leaves it open to the possibility that malicious hackers could intercept data or take control of…
President Bush is reported to have said: “When I take action, I’m not going to fire a US$2m missile at a US$10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.” As the quote suggests…
Life is hardier than was thought only a few decades ago. With the help of new exploration technologies and new methods for finding and identifying organisms, our perceptions of what constitute the environmental…
Concerns have been raised for some time about the UK government’s “digital by default” approach to welfare reforms. More and more public services are being shifted online and many fear that this will marginalise…
With the sale of first its desktop PC business and now its server business to Chinese partner Lenovo, IBM has come full circle. By exiting the hardware business IBM leaves behind the low-end market it…
Beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder. And yet, there are many faces that a majority would find beautiful, say, George Clooney’s or Audrey Hepburn’s. Psychologists interested in mate selection…