New research shows the Bajau Laut people of Southeast Asia have evolved bigger spleens to store more oxygen-rich blood.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
From genes to wounds, science is making it easier to establish the order of events in criminal cases.
Facebook is not just in the business of providing you with a service. It is also in the business of farming your data.
New research has found a way to speed up enzymes that break down the PET plastic in bottles.
My expert evidence to parliament shows how Cambridge Analytica and SCL secretly pushed their supposed notoriety in the dark arts in brazen ways.
Robots can't achieve high fives all round without human-like hands, tactile perception, manipulation control, seamless interaction and human reason, experts say.
As cities get smarter, we need to examine carefully who gets our data and what it is used for.
City living isn't for everyone, but certain birds can prosper in the environment.
Microscopically engineering surfaces could stop water leaving behind rings of residue as it dries.
How long before we find a planet just like our own?
New research shows just 1% of E. coli bacteria's genetic mutations are lethal.
Salmon prices are soaring because of sea lice infestations – but new medicine and technology could help.
The militarisation of AI has serious ethical and legal implications.
Mark Zuckerberg's decision to heavily restrict Facebook's APIs turns an opaque social network into an unaccountable black box.
A jaw bone found on a beach in Somerset could be from the largest ichthyosaur of its kind ever discovered.
Governments have started to see automation as the key to brighter urban futures. But what will this look like?
Having movable eyebrows – and evolving beyond the Neanderthal ridge – may have played a crucial role in early human survival.
How we found the oldest human fossil ever discovered outside Africa and the Levant.
The nematode that can turn slugs into zombies.
2001: A Space Odyssey's sentient computer will only ever be a work of science fiction, says a cognitive neuroscientist.
A new study challenges the established view of what dark matter is.
There could be thousands of black holes at the heart of the Milky Way.
Humans are already imposing our barely understood sexual ethic upon machines.
It's time programmers looked out old computer text adventures like Zork and Colossal Cave from the 1970s and 1980s.
A long read on how science's dark imperial past still shapes research today – and what to do about it.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal has finally brought privacy concerns about personal online data to the masses – and action is urgently needed.
It's time we changed our stereotype of the brutish, thuggish Neanderthals, and instead start viewing them with the respect they really deserve.
Ethical review is often seen as a barrier to research and innovation within universities, but it can be constructive. More attention should be paid to the potential benefits of the process.
Air resistance makes it near impossible to predict the path of a crashing satellite.
We don't know where Tiangong-1 will land but the risk of someone being hit is about 1 in 3,200.
In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook users seek answers on how their data is scraped and targeted.
An email from Aleksandr Kogan sheds light on exactly how much your Facebook data reveals about you, and what data scientists can actually do with that information.
Cosmic radiation is much higher today than it was during the Apollo era.
More and more evidence shows evolution isn't as random as often thought.
We can either take advantage of advances in technology to enhance human beings (never to go back), or we can legislate to prevent this from happening.
The biggest ethical challenges for self-driving cars arise in mundane situations, not when crashes are unavoidable.
There are all sorts of ways of making a cricket ball swing, but Australia's players chose an illegal one.
Clouds can reveal a great deal about the world we live in. Here's what happens when scientists find a whole new type.
A branch of AI research promises to deliver computers that evolve their own software but the tech industry has yet to catch on.
Thousands of animals are used for heart drug tests each year – but research shows that in silico developments are more accurate.
Young people are abandoning Facebook and calls to delete profiles are growing over the alleged exploitation of data for political campaigns.
They were discovered over 100 years ago – but we still don't know exactly what genes are.
Noise around extreme practices drowns out how data analytics is being used in everyday ways. To really consider control of our data we must look beyond Cambridge Analytica.
The privacy backlash over Cambridge Analytica and Facebook may lead to explosive consequences for academics.
How data-driven behavioural sciences are being road tested in the political sphere.
The skies can tell us when there might be trouble ahead.
Bridges should have continuous health monitoring systems in place to detect damage that can lead to collapse.
New research uses pathology in dinosaur bones to look at predator-prey interactions in the fossil record.
It's been reported that astronaut Scott Kelly no longer has the same DNA as his twin brother after spending a year in space.
It isn’t that we should worry about AI becoming more human. We should fear ourselves becoming more artificial.
Researchers have identified which part of the brain helps us understand and respond to social interactions.
A long read on how nerve agents were developed – and used in an attack on a former Russian spy on the streets of Salisbury.
CC BY-ND20.1 MB (download)
An audio version of an in depth article on the story of how the nerve agent used in an attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was developed.
Children are able to pick up negative racial stereotypes by the age of six. Luckily, parents can help reverse them.
Spot removes traditional barriers to reporting abusive behavior, because participants can log incidents without talking to a human.
CC BY-ND39 MB (download)
This episode is all about bitcoin. Will it be the currency of the future? Who’s trying to capitalise on the legal loopholes of cryptocurrencies? And is it possible to make mining them more green.
Diving without oxygen tanks requires you to enact some very weird and very strange and not all that well understood physiological feats just to stay alive.
UK's Astronomer Royal Martin Rees shares his memories of the physicist Stephen Hawking, who has died at the age of 76.
Hawking wasn't able to give his students a gentle introduction, but he did provide a lot of inspiration and support.
Stephen Hawking thought a form of string theory could be our best bet for a 'theory of everything'.
Theresa May says Britain could unleash 'extensive measures' against Russia following the nerve agent poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal.
Three researchers studied the "crop raiders" of the Brazilian rainforest in the hope of aiding both local farmers and wildlife conservation.
Scientists have discovered sophisticated tools in Kenya that are much older than expected.
Hundreds of people have been warned after former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was poisoned with Novichok nerve agent.
Nerve agents were discovered by accident in the 1930s.
Sound alerts on digital devices are often annoying, so we've tended to opt for silence. In future, that could hold us back.
UK's Astronomer Royal Martin Rees shares his memories of the physicist Stephen Hawking, who has died at the age of 76.
If an alien landed on Earth, how would you decide if it had free will like us, or was a sophisticated automaton?
Truly green plastic requires more than sustainable raw materials.
Reforms to fossil fuel subsidies must be combined with effective anti-poverty policies.
Understanding the past requires knowledge that goes beyond modern science.
Gravitational waves
The discovery of tiny ripples in space from the violent collision of dense stars could help solve many mysteries – including where the gold in our jewellery comes from.
If you understand how a trampoline works, you'll be able to understand what gravitational waves are.
All it took was a single email alert to send the world's astronomers searching for the source of the latest gravitational wave detected.
Farewell Cassini
As Cassini’s titanic mission comes to an end, we need to start thinking ahead. A combined mission to explore Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus would be a good place to start.
Cassini may be gone but the data it left behind could help reveal how long Saturn's day is and how its magnetic field is generated.
Humour and laughter
Laughing at inappropriate moments could be an early sign of dementia, while injury to the front part of the brain could make you lose your sense of sarcasm.
CC BY-ND26.5 MB (download)
In this episode of the podcast, we take in the history of Victorian humour, why kids find poo so hilarious and whether academics should try and be funny.
Scientists at work
Wild chimpanzees are hard to find, but their DNA – left-behind genetic traces – are opening up a new way of studying them.
Killing insects, as the Big Wasp Survey asked people to do, contributed to many vital advances in science.
Podcast
Research and Expert Database
Editors’ Picks
Hawking wasn't able to give his students a gentle introduction, but he did provide a lot of inspiration and support.
Research shows that the Y chromosome may be able to protect itself from extinction in the short term. But what about in a future where we all reproduce artificially?
We can see at a finer resolution than the spacing between individual photo-receptors in the eye – and it's all down to our brains.
We no longer perform surgery on babies without drugs, but a new study shows that we may be underestimating how much pain babies feel when they are under stress.
Private companies are increasingly challenging national space agencies in a new space race, which comes with great opportunities but also huge risks.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) could help unravel the mysteries of antimatter and complete scientists' next model of the universe.
A new study can't rule out the possibility that human ancestors lived on Crete at the same time as they evolved in Africa.
Rational arguments and myth busting often won't help you change the mind of a conspiracy theorist. But there are other ways.
On the trail of the men of Britain's Royal Aircraft Factory, who gave their lives to help create the world's first air force.
A group of lizards in Brazil have evolved bigger heads in just 15 years thanks to their new environment.
Scientists discover rare molecules on Titan which suggests it's creating the building blocks of life.
Events
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All Our Futures - Creating a Healthy Built Environment for Older People — University of Manchester
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Criminalisation, civil order and exclusion — University of York
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Walter Carroll Lunchtime Concert - House of Light — University of Manchester
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