Darkdiamond67/Shutterstock How will life on Earth and the ecosystems that support it adapt to climate change? Which species will go extinct – or evolve into something new? How will microbes develop further resistance to antibiotics? These kinds of questions, which are of fundamental importance to our way of life, areContinue Reading
Thousands of galaxies seen by the James Webb Space Telescope. Nasa Everything in the universe has gravity – and feels it too. Yet this most common of all fundamental forces is also the one that presents the biggest challenges to physicists. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been remarkablyContinue Reading
Research into psychedelics and their medical uses is making a comeback. 24K-Production via Shutterstock This is a transcript of The Conversation Weekly podcast episode: Psychedelic research: balancing trippyness with a new scientific rigor, published on September 29, 2022. NOTE: Transcripts may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quotingContinue Reading
Shrödinger's cat is world famous, but what does it really mean? Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr, CC BY-SA Quantum mechanics, the theory which rules the microworld of atoms and particles, certainly has the X factor. Unlike many other areas of physics, it is bizarre and counter-intuitive, which makes it dazzling and intriguing. WhenContinue Reading
3D rendering of an Neanderthal man RaveeCG/Shutterstock Imagine that you have an unhealthy interest in your neighbours’ lives. Unable to ask them directly, you rifle through their rubbish bins. You find the bones of cooked chickens and try and work out what else they eat. This is a bit likeContinue Reading
The Reface App on a smartphone Italy stock images / Alamy Stock Photo In the second season of BBC mystery thriller The Capture, deepfakes threaten the future of democracy and UK national security. In a dystopia set in present day London, hackers use AI to insert these highly realistic falseContinue Reading
The mathematical concept of a fractal is a never-ending pattern. G. DAWSON/Flickr, CC BY-SA A dominant view in science is that there is a mathematical truth structuring the universe. It is assumed that the scientist’s job is to decipher these mathematical relations: once understood, they can be translated into mathematicalContinue Reading
As psychedelic therapy trials get bigger and the drugs become more accessible, researchers need to start talking about their potential adverse effects.Continue Reading
Andrii Vodolazhskyi/Shutterstock The story could have been straight out of science fiction – scientists have grown human brain cells in a lab, and taught them to play the video game Pong, similar to squash or tennis. But this didn’t happen on the big screen. It happened in a lab inContinue Reading
Chimpanzees are highly social but recent research suggests they can be with gorillas too. apple2499/Shutterstock To survive, animals compete for resources, be it food, mating partners or territory. But a ground breaking recent study shows chimpanzees and gorillas form friendships, some lasting at least 20 years. They play, eat andContinue Reading
