Philosophy

Mind-bending new quantum experiments are blurring past, present and future

10 minutes

Fringe theories stack

Believe in the Loch Ness monster and you’re more likely to believe the Apollo missions were fake. How do weird beliefs work?

Michael D Gordin

Calculate but don’t shut up

The cliché has it that the Copenhagen interpretation demands adherence without deep enquiry. That does physics a disservice

Jim Baggott

Why simplicity works

Does the existence of a multiverse hold the key for why nature’s laws seem so simple?

Johnjoe McFadden

An idea with bite

The ‘selfish gene’ persists for the reason all good scientific metaphors do: it remains a sharp tool for clear thinking

J Arvid Ågren

Building ‘bigger and better’ has pushed cosmology forward. Can it take it any further?

7 minutes

A non-Standard model

Most cosmologists say dark matter must exist. So far, it’s nowhere to be found. A widely scorned rival theory explains why

David Merritt

How much can science really tell us about the future of climate change?

24 minutes

Against ‘beauty’ in science – how striving for elegance stifles progress

9 minutes

‘Moving paintings’ evoke a quantum particle collision at the Large Hadron Collider

4 minutes

Life with purpose

Biologists balk at any talk of ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’ – but a bold new research agenda has put agency back on the table

Philip Ball

A cyclical, forgetful Universe – Roger Penrose details an astonishing origin hypothesis

17 minutes

Sex is real

Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other

Paul Griffiths