“This government is obsessed with skilling up our population,” said Boris Johnson in his recent speech on “levelling up”. There is still a fair amount of uncertainty about exactly...
Science
Virgin Galactic And Blue Origin: Can They Be More Than ‘Space’...
Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson and his team successfully flew to the “edge of space” on the Unity 22 mission aboard a Virgin Galactic plane on July 12. The event was...
‘Cyborg Soil’ Reveals The Secret Microbial Metropolis Beneath...
Dig a teaspoon into your nearest clump of soil, and what you’ll emerge with will contain more microorganisms than there are people on Earth. We know this from lab studies that analyse samples of...
Can Consciousness Be Explained By Quantum Physics? My Research...
One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established. In the 1990s, long before winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction of black holes...
The Truth Is Still Out There: Why The Current UFO Craze May Be A...
It’s safe to say that UFOs, now branded UAPs, are back. In recent years, concerns have grown that supposed physics-defying craft are penetrating US airspace. This could represent a technological...
What Happens When Black Holes Collide With The Most Dense Stars...
For the first time, a faint signal caused by the merging of two almost equally mysterious objects – black holes and a neutron stars – has been recorded on Earth. On January 5 2020, when the world was...
Homo Longi: Extinct Human Species That May Replace Neanderthals...
In 1933 a mysterious fossil skull was discovered near Harbin City in the Heilongjiang province of north-eastern China. Despite being nearly perfectly preserved – with square eye sockets, thick brow...
IQ Tests: Are Humans Getting Smarter?
From the algorithms that make our social media accounts function to the sleep-tracking technology in our smartwatches, the world has never seemed so technologically advanced and developed. This is...
IQ Tests Can’t Measure It, But ‘Cognitive Flexibility’ Is Key To...
IQ is often hailed as a crucial driver of success, particularly in fields such as science, innovation and technology. In fact, many people have an endless fascination with the IQ scores of famous...
A New Era of Spaceflight? Promising Advances in Rocket Propulsion
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has recently commissioned three private companies, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, to develop nuclear fission thermal...
Black Swans And Other Deviations: Like Evolution, All Scientific...
Discussions about the nature of science and scientific theories are often confused by the outdated view that such theories are rendered false when anomalies arise. The notion of a scientific theory...
Origin Of Life: Lightning Strikes May Have Provided Missing...
The origin of life on Earth is one of the most complex puzzles facing scientists. It involves not only identifying the numerous chemical reactions that must take place to create a replicating...
Farming Without Disturbing Soil Could Cut Agriculture’s Climate...
Perhaps because there are no chimney stacks belching smoke, the contribution of the world’s farms to climate change seems somehow remote. But agriculture accounts for a staggering 26% of all...
Animal Adoptions Make No Evolutionary Sense, So Why Do They...
Scientists used to think that humans are special because we have larger brains than other animals. However, some experts in human evolution have suggested that it isn’t how we think that makes the...
Nuclear Power: How Might Radioactive Waste Water Affect The...
It’s been just over a decade since the fourth most powerful earthquake of the modern era triggered a tsunami that struck Fukushima on the eastern coastline of Japan, causing thousands of deaths and...
From Bioweapons to Super-Soldiers: How the UK is Joining the...
The UK government recently announced an £800 million, taxpayer-funded Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria). The brainchild of the British prime minister’s former chief...
Mars: How Ingenuity Helicopter Made The First Flight On Another...
Imagine that you are flying a model helicopter or a drone. You are there with the auto controls. You switch them on. The rotors start to turn, gradually increasing their spin. You watch, then push...
COVID-19 Vaccines are a Victory for Public Research, Not ‘Greed’...
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, reportedly attributed the success of the COVID-19 vaccines to “capitalism” and “greed”. But he is wrong – the idea that private ingenuity and naked competition...
Transparent Wood is Coming, and It Could Make an Energy...
Wood is an ancient material humans have been using for millions of years, for the construction of housing, ships and as a source of fuel for burning. It’s also a renewable source, and one way to...
How to Build a Moon Base
Half a century after humans first walked on the moon, a number of private companies and nations are planning to build permanent bases on the lunar surface. Despite the technological progress since...