Genetic traits like a bulbous nose or balding give some people reasons to moan about what they inherited from their parents. But more serious genetic flaws can cause debilitating disease. Now, Italian…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Science + Tech – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 5651 - 5675 of 5718 articles
When we think of cutting-edge innovation, we tend to think of big corporations and their latest wheezes: Google Glass, Sony flat screens or Airbus’s newest plane. But small businesses play key roles in…
A new subject is to be introduced in England to kick start our technological future. Instead of teaching ICT, the national curriculum published this week calls on schools to teach computing. This new way…
Hartmut Michel won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988 “for the determination of the structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre”, which helped reveal details of one of nature’s most useful processes…
Following an agreement in the European Parliament on the 4th July, EU countries are to strengthen their domestic laws against the more serious forms of cyber-crime. We can now expect to see prison sentences…
A recent study of Twitter communication patterns has revealed that human activity on Twitter is easily distinguishable from other types of users. By analysing the timing of tweets, we were able to discover…
The National Audit Office has warned that the government is two years behind schedule in its plan to bring broadband to 44 rural areas by 2015. It now looks like only nine of these areas will be linked…
The extinction of an animal is no longer the end of our opportunity to learn new things about its ecology and biology. The same technology that recently reconstructed the genome of the Neanderthal man…
Foundation essay: This article on the open access and science by Björn Brembs is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the UK. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment…
In a memorandum of understanding signed this week, Imperial College London signed up to working with controversial communications technology firm Huawei. The two have set plans in motion to run a joint…
Brian Kobilka won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012 for his work on G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are main targets for making new drugs. Akshat Rathi, science and technology editor, and…
In recent years, being able to engage the general public with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) has become part of the job for many academics, who are increasingly required to show…
People from all walks of life and all corners of the world are becoming scientists. Citizen science empowers those with an interest in any area from ecology to astronomy to be a part of the scientific…
While Edward Snowden sits in a Russian airport, the repercussions of the NSA scandal are being felt far and wide. But while headlines warn us about personal data and privacy, an even more sinister threat…
Fear of machines becoming smarter than humans is a standard part of popular culture. In films like iRobot and Terminator, humans are usurped. Throughout history we can trace stories about humankind overreaching…
“Reverse vaccines” could be used to help relieve sufferers of type 1 diabetes from the inconvenience of daily insulin injections. A vaccine usually works by boosting the body’s immune system to fight a…
Noise seems to be a bit of a problem in major sports tournaments. For many, vuvuzelas were the scourge of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. So much so that the BBC looked into ways of muting them on…
On the morning of June 30 in 1908, a gigantic fireball devastated hundreds of square kilometres of uninhabited Siberian forest around the Tunguska river. The first scientists to investigate the impact…
A new fungal infection may spell doom for LOLcats and cute puppies. Researchers have found a fungus that affects cats, dogs and humans with nasty consequences. Vanessa Barrs at the University of Sydney…
Even today there are few women graduate students and even fewer women academics, especially in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and maths). Why is this the case, even in 2013, and what…
Researchers have discovered a fluorescent protein in a Japanese eel consumed as a popular sushi snack. The discovery could help develop simpler and more sensitive tests to detect jaundice and other diseases…
Malaria hits rural dwellers in poor countries the hardest. Those bitten by the wrong mosquito often do not know for many days that they have contracted malaria. Some have little or no access to doctors…
In our everyday lives we constantly compare things. We care about whether we are better or worse off than others around us, or than we were in the past. Why we do this has long puzzled scientists, because…
The open access movement is forcing publishers to take down paywalls, making publicly funded research available to the public for free. But beyond that a more important development is pacing in the wings…
Battlefield 3, a video game developed by Electronic Arts (EA), has caused a stir. The debate of violence in computer games has become not just a regulatory issue but a political one too. Perhaps understanding…