In some ways, zero is just like any other number on a number line. But a new study suggests that the mind may treat the symbol for absence differently. Yasemin Saplakoglu Around 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others,… Read More The Strangeness of Zero
Anti-immigration parties are pushing policies that are hostile or indifferent towards science. David Matthews A surge in far-right parties entering governments across Europe is raising concerns for science. The parties, whose focus is typically immigration, care little about research, say policy experts. In the Netherlands — where the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the… Read More Far-right governments seek to cut billions of euros from research in Europe
Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein fundamentally disagreed about the nature of time and how it can be measured. Who was right? Think of a melody. Each note has its own distinct individuality while blending with the other notes and silences that come before and after. As we listen, past notes linger in the present ones,… Read More Clock time contra lived time
by Brenna R. Hassett The human capacity for invention is unparalleled. We have developed technologies that have allowed us to survive and thrive far beyond the ecological niches that constrained our ancestors. While our innovation has allowed us to break loose from the constraints of our home continent, Africa, and even our home planet, the actual… Read More The Surprising Ways Inventions and Ideas Spread in Ancient Prehistory
By Robert Alvarez Decades of nuclear weapons tests and other radioactive experiments injured or killed scientists, soldiers, and innocent bystanders. Many of them, and their relatives, have never been compensated, but new efforts may change that. A former Senate staffer and expert on the US nuclear program looks back at its harmful effects, and how the… Read More Seeking justice for radiation victims of the US nuclear program
Catriona Crombie Healthcare should make people’s lives better. That fact can hardly be contested. Yet for some patients with rare diseases, commercial interests are dictating who gets to access life-saving treatment and who doesn’t. Pharmaceutical companies have long been driven by global demand and the potential for the highest profits. In the past two decades,… Read More Imagine getting life-saving drugs to sick people without relying on big pharma? We may have found a way
Can an iron structure stand tall for 1,600 years without rusting, despite being exposed to the elements? By Poonam Binayak, CNN It seems implausible, considering the supposed lack of technology at the time of its construction. Yet, inside New Delhi’s UNESCO-listed Qutb Minar complex – a collection of historic monuments and buildings built in the early 13th century… Read More This mysterious iron pillar in India has been exposed to the elements for over 1,600 years. So why hasn’t it ever rusted?
As vast solar plants multiply, so does the scrap, set to reach 19m tonnes by 2050. But disposing of the waste often falls to informal traders who risk injury when dismantling broken panels Under the scorching sun, a sea of solar panels gleams in the semi-arid landscape. Pavagada, 100 miles north of Bengaluru in southern… Read More Clean energy’s dirty secret: the trail of waste left by India’s solar power boom
Shobhit Mahajan Hindustan Times, 14th April, 2024. In the Particle zoo of elementary particles which make up our universe, there is only one particle named after a person. Peter Higgs, after whom the eponymous Higgs boson is named, passed away recently at age 94 in Edinburgh. Almost exactly 60 years ago, Higgs proposed a mechanism… Read More The Atheist Scientist who discovered the ‘God Particle’
An unprecedented leap of 38.5C in the coldest place on Earth is a harbinger of a disaster for humans and the local ecosystem On 18 March, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the east Antarctic plateau documented a remarkable event. They recorded the largest jump in temperature ever measured at a meteorological centre on Earth.… Read More ‘Simply mind-boggling’: record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe
After the truth-shower 