Category: Science & Tech

A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters has confirmed that global warming has entered a phase of significant acceleration. For decades, the earth’s temperature rose at a steady rate of about 0.2 °C per decade. Recent record-breaking years sparked a debate among scientists about whether this pace was increasing but natural events such as...

Imagine you are given three gumballs of different flavours. You are told that one of them is heavier than the others, and one is lighter. But which is which? Your task is made difficult by the fact that these gumballs weigh nearly nothing. And sometimes they swap flavours. Oh, and when you try to pick...

Supertough bug may also survive colliding worlds The bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans is famous for being able to survive extreme radiation and dryness. Researchers have found it can also survive the intense pressures of being blasted off of a planet’s surface: 14,000-24,000 earth atmospheres. Genetic analysis revealed the survivors focused on DNA repair and iron transport...

Of all the irreconcilable splits in science journalism, the one concerned with what we write about and how we go about has been my bugbear. On the one hand there are journalists focused on telling stories through people. On the other are journalists like me who believe there is more to acknowledging the world and...