You've no one to blame but yourself, according to science.
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Analysis and Comment
If we want an improved theory of particle physics, understanding neutrino masses is key.
A study of Batek hunter-gatherers from Malaysia shows how laughter can shape our ethical values.
Surveillance software that identifies people from CCTV is eroding human rights and democracy.
There are potential issues with any use of machine learning in policing. But if used in the right way, it could go a long way towards more effective policing.
The way of life primates have evolved to live cannot be replicated in a human home.
We're facing an arms race to build an artificial super-intelligence – this could be a disaster without government action.
Children as young as eight or nine could be taught in a more adult, analytical way.
Overall, participation in STEM careers activities is low, with less than 30% of UK 11- to 14-year-olds reporting having taken part in 2017.
Vikings may have helped turn around Ireland's declining population.
A little bit of statistics can explain the great mystery of why only girls are being born in Miejsce Odrzanskie.
You can't change your fingerprint if it's stolen like you'd change your password.
Facebook and Neuralink are developing interfaces to link our brains to computers, with serious ethical issues.
We could one day adapt to eating the flesh of our own kind - but not until our lives depend on it.
Plant cells signal between each other in order to agree what time it is.
An equation from the 1890s can help us work out how high Hughes can actually reach with his homemade rocket.
Fossil flies from what is now Denmark reveal some striking similarities between insect eyes 54 million years ago, and our own vision today.
New research suggests people from Germany, Russia, the UK and US all think their own country was the most important in World War II.
More than a century since humans learned to fly, we need to revolutionise how we stay up there.
You can't be gaslighted if you don't get confused and you won't get confused if you are not misled in the first place.
Only 13.83% of AI authors in arXiv are women and, in relative terms, the proportion of AI papers co-authored by at least one woman has not improved since the 1990s.
In an age when women were rarely allowed in observatories, Margaret Burbidge changed how we saw the stars.
Technology-free holidays can feel unbearable at first but this soon gives way to a better experience.
Changes in our environment can reveal previously hidden mutations in our DNA with potentially good and bad consequences.
Remains of a 365m-year-old forest of extinct lycopsid trees has been found in China.
An Israeli spacecraft carrying tardigrades crashed into the moon. Whether they will survive is irrelevant.
The more we know about the animals that lived during this time, the more we can start to comprehend how species react and recover after an extinction event.
New research does away with dark matter by putting 'entropy', a measure of disorder, at the heart of the universe.
Automated decision making has been around in healthcare since the 1970s, and now radiology is the new frontline where AI is being deployed.
New research suggests some dinosaurs buried and protected eggs in groups.
Realising the silence of outer space was what made us appreciate our precarious position down on this pale blue dot – so beginning our obsession with extinction.
Bubbles in fizzy drinks are full of science you probably didn't know about - and which can even be found in volcanoes!
The damage to the dam holding back a reservoir just a mile from the nearest town downriver should focus minds on ensuring civil infrastructure is maintained.
Why wait for parts and equipment to arrive from Earth when you can print your own from moondust?
How and why animals develop as male or female is far more complex than we ever imagined.
Understanding happiness in chickens could tell us how to improve their housing.
Stone Age people in Egypt showed great respect for their dead, providing a glimpse of what was to come in the Dynastic period.
New evidence suggests most YouTube videos on climate change deny its existence.
Plants clearly lack brains but does all intelligence have to look like our own?
We haven't heard anything from alien civilisations, but perhaps they've heard us.
Alan Turing devised a way to test if AI is functionally the same as a human – we've done the same for androids.
Climate deniers recently gathered to talk shop at Donald Trump's hotel in Washington DC. There's more to their links with the president than a reservation, though.
New evidence boosts the idea that species with males who compete for mates adapt faster to changing circumstances.
Satellites monitor climate change, guide people with GPS and keep us connected through texts and social media, but they're under threat.
Why you shouldn't be afraid: it won't steal our jobs or destroy the environment.
Fossils contain a thriving world of bacteria, proteins and perhaps even organic matter from dinosaurs.
Listen up, conspiracy theorists – it is virtually impossible that there could be alien visitors on Earth.
Forgetting is beneficial for the human brain. But the internet has made it harder to let go of painful or problematic memories.
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In the fourth episode of our podcast series, we look at the practical, legal and ethical questions about going to set up base on the moon – and mining its resources.
Self-sacrifice isn't all about selfish genes.
You could jump much higher on the moon than you can on Earth – but you'd be in no danger of shooting off into space.
The head of Google's Quantum AI Labs, Hartmut Neven, claims the current speed of development means a quantum computing breakthrough is near.
Any base on the moon would need very thick walls.
Prominent thinkers exaggerating the potential or danger of artificial intelligence are pushing us towards a new AI winter.
In the race to bring electricity to the masses, the crucial role that women played in it being accepted by the masses is left at the sidelines.
Cats and humans have different ways of communicating and sometimes that can lead to problems.
When Julia Sigwart went looking for the scaly-foot snail – or Sea Pangolin – in the deep ocean, they were hard to find. Now they are seen as endangered from the prospect of deep sea mining.
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Episode 3 of the To the moon and beyond podcast takes a look at who some of the key players are in the 21st century space race and what they are competing for.
'Saving the planet doesn’t make compelling TV.' A philosopher gives his take on the legacy of the Apollo 11 moon landings.
In its Cold War race to the moon, the US played Russian roulette with solar storms.
We can justify different standards for different Twitter users by turning to the philosophical ideas about public debate.
Lions don't generally have armies of hyenas, but not every aspect of The Lion King is inaccurate.
Our experiment shows we need to work out just how damaging discarded cigarettes are to plantlife.
The recent Cloudflare outage was one of up to 14,000 the internet experiences every year thanks to its surprisingly fragile design.
Three classic examples of the "Mandala Effect" debunked.
We have the Apollo missions to thank for a lot of our geological knowledge about the moon.
Scrapping the idea of a species is an extreme idea – but perhaps a good one.
A new study shows how to create a habitable region on Mars, allowing us to grow plants to fuel human exploration.
App developers deploy three key tricks to make you a more loyal and proactive user.
When you look at the squiggly lines on Joy Division's famous album cover, you're seeing a record of lightning in outer space.
More than ten years since blockchains were developed, their usefulness is only just being discovered.
Warning about anonymous messaging app YOLO miss the potential benefits it could have.
What happens in our brains and bodies when we emotionally react to music? Can neural technology provide new ways to interact with music?
New research suggests humans spread to Europe at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The response to British Airways' data breach could help set new social norms for what is acceptable.
DNA profiling is one of the most reliable techniques we have, but it can be misused.
China wages 'war on air pollution', but turning away from fossil fuels towards natural gas has its challenges.
The rice-eating fall armyworm has spread across Asia in a year and is now found in half the provinces of China.
Facebook's cryptocurrency and digital wallet will give it unprecedented access to personal data, with the power to take on Amazon and eBay.
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The first episode of a brand new podcast series to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landings looks back at what going to the moon taught us and why we stopped sending people there.
Did you know it's a myth that Teflon came out of NASA?
Here is how our mobile phones compare with the computer that landed man on the moon in 1969.
Scientists may have worked out how emotions shape the memory processes.
Asteroids have played a key role in our history and will continue to do so in the future.
The idea of CRISPR as scissors ignores an entire ecosystem of moving parts that are crucial for understanding the awe-inspiring, crazy thing scientists are trying to do when they attempt gene editing.
A recent proposal by the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters agency suggests building in law enforcement access to encrypted communications. This has implications for users' digital rights and privacy.
Titan may host primitive lifeforms and could tell us how life arose on our own planet.
'Night-shining' clouds normally found above the poles have now been seen as far south as Los Angeles.
While the world gathers to see an eclipse, what's the rest of nature doing?
Most people follow some form of moral code, but to what extent they abide by these rules does differ in various situations.
Scientists spend years preparing for the two-minute window of a total solar eclipse.
Parenting: attachment is not, and has never been, the only way.
Alan Turing's last published paper revealed the mathematics behind the beautiful patterns that adorn the natural world.
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A new podcast series from The Conversation exploring the last 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years to come.
Scientists are hoping to turn tiny spacecraft into starships by coupling them with large solar sails.
The Voynich Manuscript has researchers, the media, and the public hooked. But pseudo-explanations for the book's 'code' reveals a serious problem with society's relationship with science.
While the science is crucial, it is also important to know what sense the people who live in and around Laetoli make of these ancient footprints.
Syrian refugees in Lebanon know how best to manage their resources, but food aid currently prevents them.
Many fans think the VAR is ruining the Women's World Cup.
People are increasingly considering themselves experts on drugs.
Most plant life survived the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl - and they have a lack of legs to thank for it.
Teaching robots to care for us in old age will be child's play.
To the moon and beyond
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The fifth episode of the To the moon and beyond podcast series explores where we will be travelling in 2069.
By 2069, we could be seeing the start of regular journeys from the moon to Mars.
Any base on the moon would need very thick walls.
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Episode four of To the moon and beyond, a podcast series marking the 50th anniversary of the moon landings.
We have the Apollo missions to thank for a lot of our geological knowledge about the moon.
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Episode 3 of the To the moon and beyond podcast takes a look at who some of the key players are in the 21st century space race and what they are competing for.
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.
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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.
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.
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Research and Expert Database
Even if we can prevent a global warming apocalypse, our planet won’t be safe forever – the sun will one day expand. So should we try to move the Earth to a wider orbit?
Would you rather lose your sense of touch or your vision? Here are the pros and cons of each, according to science.
Forget about dark matter and dark energy, new research suggests that the existence of 'dark fluid' may solve some of the biggest mysteries in physics.
We previously thought mitochondrial DNA could only be passed on by mothers.
Bullies have traditionally been viewed as having low IQ and social problems, but this often isn't the case.
New research shows how 'teleological thinking' means that conspiracists are more likely to also be creationists.
Why do some people love roller coasters while others hate them?
An expert gives a few tips on what makes the perfect penalty football kick.
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?
Psychological phenomena have long been thought of as universal. But it turns out scientists may have been blinded by their own culture.
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.
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