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
The former soccer player is working to turn agricultural waste into a fossil fuel replacement, reducing emissions and harmful byproducts.Continue Reading
The Ouija board was first developed in 1890. Couperfield/ Shutterstock Despite being around for more than 100 years, Ouija boards (a wooden board covered with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9 and the words “yes”, “no” and “goodbye”) continue to be a popular activity – especially around Halloween.Continue Reading
Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock Nearly three years since SARS-CoV-2 first emerged, we’re still not certain where the virus behind COVID-19 came from. The location of the initial outbreak close to the Wuhan Institute of Virology drew suspicion that it may have been a lab leak. But scientists largely came out in favourContinue Reading
Juliya Shangarey/Shutterstock Why are snails’ trails shiny? – Liliana, aged eight, Dublin, Ireland Snails produce a lot of slime, and it is incredibly useful to them. Snail slime is made of a mixture of substances. It is mostly water mixed with proteins and some carbohydrates and minerals, formed into aContinue Reading
Legendrea loyezae, a very rare ciliate that lives in oxygen-free sediments of lakes James Weiss, Author provided You are more likely to take a trip to the Moon than to see a microbe called Legendrea loyezae under a microscope. Nasa’s Apollo programme has sent a total of 24 people toContinue Reading
