Will employers in the future watch what their staff get up to on social media? Allowing bosses or would-be employers a snoop around social media pages is a growing trend in the US, and now a new report…
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A huge criminal investigation is underway in the Netherlands, following the downing of flight MH17. Ten Dutch prosecutors and 200 policemen are involved in collecting evidence to present at the International…
More than a month has passed since Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed with the loss of all 298 lives on board. But despite the disturbances at the crash site near the small town of Grabovo, near Donetsk…
The Iceland Meteorological Office has increased the risk of an eruption at Bárðarbunga (or Bardarbunga) volcano, after hundreds of earthquakes were reported over the weekend. The risk level has been set…
A few days ago, I was an astrophysicist and contributed to a research project by organising sunspot images in order of complexity. After I’d had enough of that, I became a biochemist and worked late into…
Wikipedia is often seen as a great equaliser. Every day, hundreds of thousands of people collaborate on a seemingly endless range of topics by writing, editing and discussing articles, and uploading images…
A bizarre 500-million-year-old “worm with legs” has finally found its rightful place on the evolutionary tree of life. Fossils of Hallucigenia look so odd that scientists couldn’t make head or tail of…
A series of binary discussions has been plaguing early reading instruction for quite some time now: phonics versus whole language, reading for pleasure versus reading for learning, digital versus paper…
As an example of mass participatory journalism, where the voices of ordinary citizens are heard as much as public officials or PR professionals, the UK’s hyperlocal news network is second to none. Regional…
There is something magical about seeing 1,000 robots move, when humans are not operating any of them. In a new study published in Science, researchers have achieved just that. This swarm of 1,000 robots…
Mini drones are not yet appearing in our skies on a daily basis but they certainly are a rapidly growing trend. People can and do get hurt so we really need to help amateur pilots learn how to fly their…
Millions of asteroids of all shapes and sizes are littered throughout the inner solar system. In the past three decades, scientists have spotted as many as 500,000 but many more remain unseen. Many of…
The risks posed to human beings by artificial intelligence in no way resemble the popular image of the Terminator. That fictional mechanical monster is distinguished by many features – strength, armour…
With testing already happening in the US and trials given the green light in the UK, the autonomous car seems like more of a possibility than ever. Aside from the early adopters who want to be part of…
Today, just three companies – Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – account for about half of all commercial seed sales. More and more, agricultural patents are used to increase the control these and similar…
I joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) a few years ago for two main reasons. It offered academic freedom and the best research opportunities in India. But also, unlike most research institutions…
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that as we spend more time communicating via social media, we are disappearing into bubbles. We receive information from the same sources and witness the views of the…
Cuckoos aren’t the kind of parents you’d want. They never raise their young ones, leaving that job to other birds. They achieve this by laying their eggs in other expectant birds’ nests, who treat them…
The smartphone continues its rise and rise as the device of choice for our everyday activities. Our keys used to be the one thing we would have to carry around with us at all times and losing them would…
While alien life can be seen nightly on television and in the movies, it has never been seen in space. Not so much as a microbe, dead or alive, let alone a wrinkle-faced Klingon. Despite this lack of protoplasmic…
Military intelligence has relied on observing and reading enemy messages since the earliest times of conflict. But it was during World War I that great leaps were made in the technology needed to intercept…
When the English football fixtures were announced in June, many fans would have studied them from their own perspective. Are the fixtures fair to their team? Why do they have to travel the full length…
In September 2014, the Natural Environment Research Council will launch a major five-year programme to study the volcanoes of Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley. The project team contains core investigators…
Computer users everywhere are looking at the USB stick sat next to their computer this week with trepidation. Many are now wondering if this trusted friend has turned against them now that cybersecurity…
Monitoring natural resources, biodiversity and wildlife data is crucial for economic and ecological sustainability. But in areas that are hard to reach, monitoring becomes a problem. In Scotland, for example…