idea
Physics
Why we can stop worrying and love the particle accelerator
Joel Frohlich
idea
Medicine
Gentle medicine could radically transform medical practice
Jacob Stegenga
essay
Human reproduction
The macho sperm myth
The idea that millions of sperm are on an Olympian race to reach the egg is yet another male fantasy of human reproduction
Robert D Martin
essay
Biology
The obesity era
As the American people got fatter, so did marmosets, vervet monkeys and mice. The problem may be bigger than any of us
David Berreby
video
Biology
Watch a single cell become a complete organism in six pulsing minutes of timelapse
6 minutes
idea
Medicine
Lifestyle changes, not a magic pill, can reverse Alzheimer’s
Clayton Dalton
idea
History of science
What Einstein meant by ‘God does not play dice’
Jim Baggott
essay
Cosmology
Exodus
Elon Musk argues that we must put a million people on Mars if we are to ensure that humanity has a future
Ross Andersen
essay
Childhood and adolescence
Childhood, disrupted
Adversity in childhood can create long-lasting scars, damaging our cells and our DNA, and making us sick as adults
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
idea
Philosophy of science
Why philosophy is so important in science education
Subrena E Smith
idea
Cosmology
Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi
Michael Strauss
idea
Computing and artificial intelligence
Algorithms associating appearance and criminality have a dark past
Catherine Stinson
essay
Future of technology
The golden quarter
Some of our greatest cultural and technological achievements took place between 1945 and 1971. Why has progress stalled?
Michael Hanlon
essay
Illness and disease
The case against sugar
A potent toxin that alters hormones and metabolism, sugar sets the stage for epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes
Gary Taubes
essay
Physics
Radical dimensions
Relativity says we live in four dimensions. String theory says it’s 10. What are ‘dimensions’ and how do they affect reality?
Margaret Wertheim
essay
Evolution
War in the womb
A ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy
Suzanne Sadedin
idea
Pleasure and pain
Psychogenic shivers: why we get the chills when we aren’t cold
Félix Schoeller
essay
Physics
Time is an object
Not a backdrop, an illusion or an emergent phenomenon, time has a physical size that can be measured in laboratories
Sara Walker & Lee Cronin
idea
Anthropology
It’s not that your teeth are too big: your jaw is too small
Peter Ungar
essay
Consciousness and altered states
Hallucinogenic nights
Sleep paralysis has tormented me since childhood. But now it’s my portal to out-of-body travel and lucid dreams
Karen Emslie
idea
Computing and artificial intelligence
Coding is not ‘fun’, it’s technically and ethically complex
Walter Vannini
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
essay
History
The salacious Middle Ages
Medieval people feared death by celibacy as much as venereal disease, and practiced complex sexual health regimens
Katherine Harvey
idea
Philosophy of science
You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time
Elise Crull