You must have heard that spider silk is stronger than steel. We all want to believe that there are wonder materials in nature that are far superior to human-made ones. But the problem with statements that…
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In May, the US Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records from reporters of the Associated Press (AP), a multinational non-profit news agency. AP’s chief executive Gary Pruitt…
In rich countries, more than 80% of the population today will survive past the age of 70. About 150 years ago, only 20% did. In all this while, though, only one person lived beyond the age of 120. This…
Wikipedia, the collection of 37 million articles that anyone can edit, is defined by conflict. The ability for anyone to shape this global repository of knowledge inevitably means that we are presented…
There can be few words as poignant as “endling”, the name given to the last surviving individual of a species. The picture (below) of Benjamin, the last Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, is heartbreaking…
There are many qualities that have been suggested that separate human beings from other living species. These include tool making, an ability to dream and especially the development of highly sophisticated…
After many years of research, we still do not completely understand the brains of even the simplest organisms. The human brain with its 80 billion neurons is largely a mystery. But with better tools we…
The theft of intellectual property (IP) online is a serious matter. A 2011 report by the UK Cabinet Office estimates the value of lost IP to the UK economy at about £21 billion. Until recently the debate…
Social media is no longer a new thing. But to scientists it still might be. There are few who are starting to take advantage of social media for professional reasons. What can other scientists learn from…
Bridge collapses are often tragic, but are also fascinating for bridge engineers as they usually provide puzzles to solve and often lead to major changes in design, construction and management. Complete…
How much do we really spend on research and development, and how does it vary internationally? To provide some context for this science funding debate, the Scienceogram team has broken down spending across…
The UK government’s spending review is coming up and scientists are worried. They fear that there may be cuts to science funding, which they were able to just about avoid in 2010 after a strong campaign…
There are times when only clichés work. There is a 400-year-old elephant in the science lab and the emperor, frankly, has no clothes. It was in 1605 that Francis Bacon, a British politician and lawyer…
In Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a group of our ape-like ancestors encounter a towering black rectangle somewhere in an African desert. Something in them changes. A seed is sown. Everything…
During the autumn of 1944, the US Air Corps forecasting team made a series of perfect predictions about weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean. Or so it seemed according to reports from aircrafts flying…
After many months of rumours, speculation and discussion on the next offering of Microsoft’s gaming console, details of the new Xbox have finally been revealed. Christened Xbox One, it is to be their third…
There was chaos on the streets of Halajba in March 1988. In this corner of Iraq, at the time Iraqi Kurdistan, people had suddenly started experiencing cold-like symptoms – tight chest and nasal congestion…
Today’s wars are not about food, but not too far in the future they could be. The number of people dying of starvation has been falling for decades, but the decline in the numbers of hungry people is slowing…
There are now more mobile devices than people on our planet. The amount of personal data we share through mobile devices is also increasing. So it is not surprising that cyber-criminals want a piece of…
Researchers have taken the first step towards designing a rapid way of identifying harmful bacteria in infections, demonstrating the potential for faster patient treatment and decreased reliance on antibiotics…
A deadly fungal infection has been spreading across western North America. The number of human and animal cases has grown rapidly in recent years, to the extent that government agencies in US and Canada…
Antibiotics have probably saved more lives than any other form of medication. Prior to their development, things that we now consider trivial, such as a prick from a rose bush or a sore throat, could easily…
I want to live longer and help others do the same. I assumed the most effective way to do that is by understanding the science of ageing and then engineering solutions to extend human lifespan. That is…
In our lab we have a phone that rings several times a day. The conversation is always the same. A man from somewhere in the UK is desperate to know the answer to one question: “Am I a Viking?” An answer…