SciDev.Net brings you the most commented on articles in 2012, including news, editorials and opinions, spanning topics as diverse as wind energy, access to weather data and communicating science.
It would be tempting for poor and middle-income countries to think that a top-flight research institution is all that stands in their way of reducing poverty, leaping forward in their national development, and establishing profitable new footholds in the global economy. But this decision cannot be simply tactical. It must be a long-term strategic decision…
Could the United States establish a moon colony and develop a new propulsion system for going to Mars? All within eight years of a Newt Gingrich presidency, as Mr. Gingrich promised this week? The answers seem to be technologically yes, economically iffy and politically very difficult. In proposing an ambitious vision for space, Mr. Gingrich…
The Emperor penguin’s future is looking bleak if global temperatures continue to rise and melt sea ice, scientists have warned. At nearly four feet tall, Antarctica’s largest sea bird became a global icon thanks to films like March of the Penguins and Happy Feet, but if temperatures continue to rise, it faces extinction. Unlike other…
Certain apes appear to be much smarter than others, with at least one chimpanzee now called “exceptional” when compared to other chimps. The standout chimp, an adult female in her 20s named Natasha, scored off the charts in a battery of tests. The findings, published in the latest Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B,…
The Higgs Boson really, really is the Higgs Boson. At first, testing at the Large Hadron Collider revealed a particle that was likely the Higgs Boson, the theorized particle that gives the universe its mass. Then, more tests confirmed we were even more sure about it–there was a one-in-550 million chance it wasn’t the Higgs….
Neanderthals, or even older Homo erectus (“Upright Man”) might have sailed around the Mediterranean, stopping at islands such as Crete and Cyprus, new evidence suggests. The evidence suggests that these hominid species had considerable seafaring and cognitive skills. “They had to have had boats of some sort; unlikely they swam,” said Alan Simmons, lead author…