In this search for the origin of one of the world’s most common genetic diseases, emerging research in evolutionary medicine raises new questions about our history, development, and future as a species.
Research projects investigating the “miracle material” graphene and the human brain have won unprecedented funding of up to 1 billion euros each. Under the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies programme, the backing is designed to give Europe an edge in key areas of research. Graphene – a single-layer of carbon atoms – has extraordinary…
If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article recently published in the journal PLoS ONE. When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child’s brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more…
Senior US government officials are to be briefed at the White House this week on the danger of an ice-free Arctic in the summer within two years. The meeting is bringing together Nasa’s acting chief scientist, Gale Allen, the director of the US National Science Foundation, Cora Marett, as well as representatives from the US…
Every decision you make is essentially a committee act. Members chime in, options are weighed, and eventually a single proposal for action is approved by consensus. The committee, of course, is the densely knit society of neurons in your head. And approved by consensus is really just a delicate way of saying that the opposition…
If God is everywhere, then why is God so hard to perceive? One could imagine a God more like a Chairman Mao or a Comrade Stalin with photographs of himself hung everywhere in nature and everywhere the secret police to enforce our acquiescence.
Time, arguably our most precious nonrenewable resource, has a slippery nature in our minds. Sometimes it flows quickly. In other situations, it trickles at an unbearably slow pace. And, to the horror of many, it speeds as we age. Why should something as reliable as a ticking clock be perceived with such inconsistency? Claudia Hammond,…