By now, we’re surely all aware of the ongoing tussle between Apple and Samsung over patents, given it makes global headlines on a regular basis. So what are we to make of it? The current flashpoint comes…
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Science + Tech – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 5301 - 5325 of 6591 articles
With this year’s National Science Week (Aug 10-18) just past, many people are now thinking busily about science. So here’s a quick poll: What percentage of Australians are interested in science and technology…
Thanks to two studies published in Nature last Thursday, the chance of successful teleportation has considerably increased. Which is a good thing, right? Whether or not you’ve ever been on a long-haul…
According to Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, “all human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret”. It is in our nature to want privacy, yet in the internet age, it has never been easier…
My colleagues and I have confirmed the existence of a new type of star cluster – as published recently in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. But what are star clusters, and why do they…
You’ll have seen the news about BlackBerry – the once undisputed champion in communications technology – essentially putting itself up for sale this week, and may be lamenting the decline of a tech giant…
On the back of an interim report by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) into the Essendon Football Club’s controversial supplements program in 2011-12, the AFL last night charged the club…
Last week, two secure email providers - Lavabit and Silent Circle - announced the closure of their services, citing pressures on them to reveal user information as the key reason for the decision. The…
Ever since the Neandertal (Homo neanderthalensis) type fossil was discovered in the Neander Valley of Germany in 1856, the species has been variously portrayed as knuckle-dragging cavemen and primitive…
Misery is psychology’s stale bread and rancid butter. The field heaps attention on sadness, fear and anxiety, and their psychiatric cousins depression, phobia and neurosis. Anger receives much less scrutiny…
When “the world’s first laboratory-grown burger” was unveiled, cooked and eaten last week, the story received saturation news coverage. But was it really the first? Or was this story served up to a ravenous…
How many people do you have to put into a room before you are guaranteed that at least two of them share a birthday? We all know and love the blissful feeling of winning an argument. Well, trust me, that’s…
Natural history collections housed in museums and herbaria are generally not on display to the public – what visitors see represents only a tiny section of the wealth held behind locked doors. What use…
No-one would describe News Corp Australia’s view on the National Broadband Network (NBN) as rosy. But if it’s true the company has engaged in repeated attacks on the government because it “hates” its network…
Recently we reported on the issue of red imported fire ants in Brisbane – a pernicious pest, first detected in Queensland in 2001, that affects agricultural crops, native species and human health. Although…
Jumping spiders are unique in the spider world as they don’t build webs - they’re active visual predators who rarely use silk. In fact, the main use we thought jumping spiders had for silk was a safety…
Studies in non-human animals have led to “countless” treatments for various diseases, according to a recent article on The Conversation. But the author, Gavan McNally, provided no scientific references…
Perhaps the proverbial tipping point in US print journalism has been reached. With the US$250m acquisition this week of The Washington Post by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, the US newspaper…
Here’s an interesting stat to bring up at the dinner table: for each human cell in your body, you have roughly ten non-human cells living in your gut. In other words, there are around 100 trillion microorganisms…
In a honey bee colony, the queen bee rules while her daughter workers do nothing but work. So what happens when the queen dies? Are there worker riots, with the colony dissolving into a chaotic mess? Surprisingly…
There is a hole in the Australian public administration where a space agency should be. That was the clear lesson from the Australian Space Research Program (ASRP) project delivered at the end of June…
Like many Australians, you may have recoiled in horror or laughed heartily when the results of the Australian Academy of Science’s science literacy survey surfaced last month. You may have had a similar…
Assuming you are geeky enough to open up any mobile device on the market – a phone, tablet or laptop - the most glaringly obvious component of the device is the battery: it generally consumes up to (if…
After the first day of the third Ashes test cricket match between England and Australia it may be a good time to consider how spin bowling might affect the outcome of the series - and how science can be…
XKeyscore is an online surveillance tool run by America’s National Security Agency (NSA) that allows analysts to search contents of chats, emails and browsing histories without warrants, according to leaked…