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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
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Physics

Why we can stop worrying and love the particle accelerator

Joel Frohlich

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Medicine

Gentle medicine could radically transform medical practice

Jacob Stegenga

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Human reproduction

The macho sperm myth

The idea that millions of sperm are on an Olympian race to reach the egg is yet another male fantasy of human reproduction

Robert D Martin

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Biology

Watch a single cell become a complete organism in six pulsing minutes of timelapse

6 minutes

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Biology

The obesity era

As the American people got fatter, so did marmosets, vervet monkeys and mice. The problem may be bigger than any of us

David Berreby

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Medicine

Lifestyle changes, not a magic pill, can reverse Alzheimer’s

Clayton Dalton

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History of science

What Einstein meant by ‘God does not play dice’

Jim Baggott

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Cosmology

Exodus

Elon Musk argues that we must put a million people on Mars if we are to ensure that humanity has a future

Ross Andersen

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Childhood and adolescence

Childhood, disrupted

Adversity in childhood can create long-lasting scars, damaging our cells and our DNA, and making us sick as adults

Donna Jackson Nakazawa

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Philosophy of science

Why philosophy is so important in science education

Subrena E Smith

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Cosmology

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi

Michael Strauss

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Algorithms associating appearance and criminality have a dark past

Catherine Stinson

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Illness and disease

The case against sugar

A potent toxin that alters hormones and metabolism, sugar sets the stage for epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes

Gary Taubes

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Physics

Radical dimensions

Relativity says we live in four dimensions. String theory says it’s 10. What are ‘dimensions’ and how do they affect reality?

Margaret Wertheim

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Future of technology

The golden quarter

Some of our greatest cultural and technological achievements took place between 1945 and 1971. Why has progress stalled?

Michael Hanlon

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Pleasure and pain

Psychogenic shivers: why we get the chills when we aren’t cold

Félix Schoeller

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Anthropology

It’s not that your teeth are too big: your jaw is too small

Peter Ungar

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Physics

Time is an object

Not a backdrop, an illusion or an emergent phenomenon, time has a physical size that can be measured in laboratories

Sara Walker & Lee Cronin

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Evolution

War in the womb

A ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy

Suzanne Sadedin

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History

The salacious Middle Ages

Medieval people feared death by celibacy as much as venereal disease, and practiced complex sexual health regimens

Katherine Harvey

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Coding is not ‘fun’, it’s technically and ethically complex

Walter Vannini

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Philosophy of science

You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time

Elise Crull

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Consciousness and altered states

Hallucinogenic nights

Sleep paralysis has tormented me since childhood. But now it’s my portal to out-of-body travel and lucid dreams

Karen Emslie

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Human reproduction

We are multitudes

Women are chimeras, with genetic material from both their parents and children. Where does that leave individual identity?

Katherine Rowland