gpointstudio/Shutterstock Established the same year Facebook was founded (2004), Safer Internet Day has become a fixture in schools, teaching children how to safely navigate an increasingly complex online world. With much of the world in some form of lockdown, this year’s Safer Internet Day will be different. Parents must takeContinue Reading
G-Stock Studio/Shutterstock With gyms closed and millions cooped up and restless at home, it’s little wonder that “healthtech” is now being billed as the next big battleground over which the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Google will fight. Chief among their products are wearable devices that measure your heart rate,Continue Reading
Satellites affect your life every day. Shutterstock Almost 3,000 operational spacecraft orbit our Earth. This number is growing constantly, thanks to cheaper materials and smaller satellites. Having this many satellites in orbit can create problems, including space junk and the way they change our view of the night sky. ButContinue Reading
There are over 100 words for the noise a dog makes, in more than 60 languages, according to the work of psychologist Stanley Coren. These range from “ouah-ouah” in France to others less recognisable to English speakers, such as “hong-hong”, apparently, in Thailand. Of course, these differences only reflect theContinue Reading
Zenza Flarini/Shutterstock From Washington DC to Wall Street, 2021 has already seen online groups causing major organised offline disruption. Some of it has been in violation of national laws, some in violation of internet platforms’ terms of service. When these groups are seen to cause societal harm, the solution fromContinue Reading
How times have changed since the Apollo era. Within the space of a few days, two space missions from China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), respectively, are set to reach Mars. The UAE’s Hope mission will go into orbit around Mars on February 9. The next day, the ChineseContinue Reading
Releasing his creation for free 30 years ago, the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, famously declared: “this is for everyone”. Today, his invention is used by billions – but it also hosts the authoritarian crackdowns of antidemocratic governments, and supports the infrastructure of the most wealthy andContinue Reading
A replica of Noah's Ark from the biblical tale at the Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky. Lindasj22/Shutterstock Many people around the world looked on aghast as they witnessed the harm done by conspiracy theories such as QAnon and the myth of the stolen US election that led to theContinue Reading
Nasa's Perseverance. NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY-SA There are two planned Mars landings in 2021. First, Nasa’s Perseverance rover is due to land on the planet later this month. Then China’s Tianwen rover will follow in May. Both missions intend to search the planet for signs of life. But how do weContinue Reading
All eyes on Mars. Kevin Gill/Flickr Looking at its achievements over the past decade, nobody would doubt China is aiming to win the new space race. Not only has it been the only country to land on the Moon in about 40 years, and the first to soft land onContinue Reading
