One reason so many scientific studies may be wrong
Oct 06, 2016 14:24 pm UTC| Science
There is a replicability crisis in science unidentified false positives are pervading even our top research journals. A false positive is a claim that an effect exists when in actuality it doesnt. No one knows what...
If there was a Nobel silver medal, I'd award it to Jeffrey Gordon and our gut microbes
Oct 05, 2016 12:29 pm UTC| Insights & Views Science
A hot tip for this years Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was Jeffrey Gordon. (In case you missed it, the prize went to Yoshinori Ohsumi.) Over the past 15 years, Gordon has progressed an obscure study of boring gut...
Before Nobels: Gifts to and from rich patrons were early science's currency
Oct 05, 2016 11:35 am UTC| Insights & Views Science
While the Nobel Prizes are 115 years old, rewards for scientific achievement have been around much longer. As early as the 17th century, at the very origins of modern experimental science, promoters of science realized the...
Science is key to U.S. standing, but presidential candidates largely ignore it
Oct 04, 2016 14:14 pm UTC| Science Politics
Aside from Hillary Clintons brief mentions of the need to focus on developing technology and clean energy jobs and addressing climate change, science issues were absent from the first presidential debate. Unfortunately,...
Animalcules, antibiotics and the bacteria that hold clues to the origins of life
Oct 04, 2016 13:13 pm UTC| Science
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the 18th-century Dutch scientist, was the first person to see single-celled organisms through a microscope and describe what he called animalcules. Three centuries later weve learned a great deal...
The science, drugs and tech pushing our brains to new limits
Oct 04, 2016 12:57 pm UTC| Science
A recent explosion of neuroscience techniques is driving substantial advances in our understanding of the brain. Combined with developments in engineering, machine learning and computing this flowering has helped us...
Protecting biodiversity: people's buy-in is as important as the science
Oct 04, 2016 08:08 am UTC| Science
Biodiversity, the variety of life on earth (plants, animals and the ecosystems in which they live), underpins the planets life support systems and consequently human well-being. Unprecedented, large-scale biodiversity loss...
Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility
Why Germany ditched nuclear before coal – and why it won’t go back
Labour can afford to be far more ambitious with its economic policies – voters are on board
Sudan: civil war stretches into a second year with no end in sight