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How can we think 100 years ahead, and is that enough? Well, it’s not enough, but it’s a fantastic start. I think that to trust the future of the Earth to economists, after what we’ve seen over the last few years is total insanity. And economists who teach us to discount the future don’t see…
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…
People who use a ‘brain-workout’ program for just 10 hours have a mental edge over their peers even a year later, researchers report today in PLoS ONE1. The search for a regimen of mental callisthenics to stave off age-related cognitive decline is a booming area of research — and a multimillion-dollar business. But critics argue…
In recent years astronomers have extended their view almost to the very edge of the observable universe. With the venerable Hubble Space Telescope researchers have spotted a handful of galaxies so faraway that we see them as they appeared just 400 million years or so after the big bang. But even as astronomers peer ever…
The relationship between science and religion has always been vexed. Most scientists I know are nonbelievers, convinced that there is no deity, or at least that there is no convincing evidence of one. Even those who are believers, like Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, see their religion and their science as…
“We already know it is too late to reverse the planet’s transformation, and we know what is going to happen next – superstorms, super-droughts, super-pandemics, massive population displacement, water scarcity, desertification and all the rest. Massive destruction, displacement and despair. Our worst fears are already upon us. The reality is far worse than anyone has…
The solid iron core is actually crystalline, surrounded by liquid. But the temperature at which that crystal can form had been a subject of long-running debate. Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt. Seismic waves captured after earthquakes…
A colleague at my institution recently invited a scientist with a “foreign-sounding” name to deliver a seminar. Foreign, yes, but not to my ears – immediately I knew that this was an Israeli. As fate would have it, not only did I recognise the name as Israeli, but I recognised the name – and remembered…
Researchers genetically modified E. coli bacteria to convert sugar into an oil that is almost identical to conventional diesel. If the process could be scaled up, this synthetic fuel could be a viable alternative to the fossil fuel, the team said. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor…
Most primates make rudimentary calls that consist of one or two syllables. But the gelada—native only to the grasslands of the Ethiopian plateau—displays “rapid fluctuations in pitch and volume” akin to human speech. The similarity has researchers’ tongues wagging. “Our finding provides support for the lip-smacking origins of [human] speech, because it shows that this…