Mathematicians are like anatomists learning how a body works, or navigators charting new waters.
Tibetan monks at a monastry in Gansu province in China. New research shows sending a child to a monastery can have surprising evolutionary advantages for a family.
Matyas Rehak/Shutterstock
Listen to the first episode of Discovery, a new series available via The Conversation Weekly podcast, telling the stories of fascinating new research discoveries from around the world.
On Isla Hornos, Magellan’s beech trees grow in wind-protected nooks and crannies.
Andres Holz
A team of researchers found the southernmost tree and forest on Earth at the extreme tip of South America. Wind limits where trees grow on Isla Hornos and those wind patterns are shifting.
Innovators are comfortable dealing with uncertainty.
Gremlin/E+ via Getty Images
Many great innovators have personality traits in common. Comfort with uncertainty is critical, but passion, curiosity and a number of other learnable skills can prime you for an innovate idea.
A composite image showing the distribution of dark matter, galaxies and hot gas in a merging galaxy cluster taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii.
NASA
Women have made life-changing research discoveries in the life sciences. Their achievements need to be recognized in order to increase future discoveries by women scientists.
A beached hoodwinker sunfish, the new species described by researchers from Murdoch University.
Murdoch University
A four-year puzzle has ended with the discovery of a new species of sunfish. These famously strange-looking animals are the largest bony fish in the oceans.
A replica of the remains of “Lucy” at the National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Reuters/Barry Malone
A novel approach to detect bacterial infections in 10-15 minutes is expected to become commercially available next year.
Neutrinos, we’re looking for you! Japan’s Super-Kamiokande detector.
Kamioka Observatory, ICRR (Institute for Cosmic Ray Research), The University of Tokyo
The discovery of Homo naledi has been a social media sensation, recording an extraordinary number of views – more than 170,000 – for a scientific paper.