This is a transcript of a speech given at the British Science Festival in Newcastle on September 12. It’s always a pleasure to speak at the British (Science) Association, but there are two special reasons…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Science + Tech – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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The Silk Road snaked across continents for more than a thousand years, shaping civilisations in East and West. Famously trodden by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, the trade route brought riches to…
At a time of much business debate around whether the UK should remain in the European Union (EU), there is one critical area being overlooked regarding the relationship – science. With a growing appreciation…
Seasoned Apple watchers will have successfully predicted nearly all the hardware in the two new iPhones that have just been unveiled by CEO Tim Cook in a hotly anticipated presentation. But while one model…
Five years ago, at breakfast time, the world waited anxiously for news from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The first nervy bunch of protons were due to be fired around the European…
It seems that self-driving vehicles will be with us quite soon. Google has been practising letting go of the wheel on its autonomous cars for some time now, Nissan has recently promised self-driving cars…
When it comes to sex among guppies, competition is high for those at the top of the game. To get around this predicament, a recent study has shown, guppies use trickery. Competition in fish of the Poeciliidae…
A megavolcano found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is being reported as the largest single volcano on Earth. Tamu Massif, as the megavolcano is called, may be as voluminous as Olympus Mons on Mars…
The tech wars took a major swerve into the leftfield this week. No longer content with updating their phone offerings, companies have come over all James Bond in the hope of hitting upon the next big innovation…
Digital life now begins before birth, with excited expectant parents sharing ultrasound images of their unborn babies online. But your digital life also continues after you die, and can come in handy in…
There are allegations that a nerve agent was used in Syria recently. According to US officials, it killed more than 1400 people, including 400 children. But since then, in a more recent incident, a bomb…
The government has announced an extra £1 billion is being channelled into efforts to make the NHS “paperless” by 2018. Central to this aim are plans to make patient health records digital. The goal is…
The UK government’s Technology Strategy Board has announced (and not for the first time) that it’s putting its weight behind the creative media sector, this time by way of a competition designed to encourage…
The current theory of star formation has a problem: it cannot make big stars. In the standard star-making recipe, stars are formed in the depths of gas clouds made from molecular hydrogen. These clouds…
In Dragon Day – a provocative new movie on release in the US in November – we see the consequences of a “cyber 9/11”. China has attacked the critical infrastructure of the US in a large-scale cyber-attack…
The latest battle between mobile phone companies for customers is well underway as they prepare for the full introduction of 4G, the new superfast service that is supposed to allow unprecedented internet…
Bitcoin enthusiasts and libertarians the world over are in a state of confusion about the slowness with which the outside world is catching on to their new way of exchanging money. But regulators and lawmakers…
George Clooney revealed details last week about “his” spy satellite over Sudan, which he funds to keep an eye on the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who has been accused of war crimes. The Satellite…
NASA has a rover called Curiosity, currently scurrying around the surface of Mars, exploring the geology with the aim of better understanding whether or not life could, at one time, have existed on the…
The so called “leaky pipeline” of women in academic science, technology, engineering and maths is a big issue, representing a major loss in talent and creativity. Only 15% of professors in these fields…
For life to persist, it must tolerate its environment. The depth of an arctic winter is formidable, and is most notably overcome by hibernation. But some reptiles and amphibians survive by allowing their…
How much are you worth to your company? Earlier this week, Steve Ballmer had the misfortune to discover that the announcement of his retirement increased Microsoft’s share price by 7.6%. Dispiriting as…
There are more than 5,000 species of mammals alive today and most people would argue that they are some of the most successful animals on Earth. But our research, published today, suggests that some mammals…
What does your world look like? What are the contours of your neighbourhood? How are you feeling today? Mobile phones are increasingly providing us with the answers to these questions. In our daily activities…
A flurry of initiatives aimed at connecting the billions – mainly in Africa – who still do not have access to the internet are underway. A few weeks ago, Google’s possibly aptly named Project Loon was…