Category: Technology

Within the next week, Congress is preparing to vote on the KIDS Act, a sprawling package of legislation that seeks to control Americans’ web browsing and private messaging. The package includes a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, combined with a collection of other internet bills, study bills, reporting requirements, and […]

Sold to the public as a foreign surveillance tool, Section 702 is the law has let intelligence agencies spy on millions of Americans’ private conversations without a warrant. Despite years of revelations about this law’s misuse, Congress has repeatedly reauthorized Section 702 without meaningful reform. Until this month, that is, when it finally lapsed in a major victory for privacy. […]

There is a special gallery inside the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi where visitors slow down, lower their voices and often fall silent. In front of them, carefully lit and disarmingly small, lies the skeleton of Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old hominin. Perhaps more than any other ancient relative, Lucy has challenged us to think deeply […]

Baboons are one of the most widespread of Africa’s primate groups. They range across sub-Saharan Africa and into the Arabian Peninsula. Baboons’ ability to spread across such a vast geographic area is based on their great ecological adaptability and dietary flexibility. This enables them to flourish in a wide variety of habitats, including deserts, swamps, […]

Did you click on this article out of your own free will? Or was it predetermined by the cosmic evolution of particles, unfolding in an unbroken chain reaction set in motion by the big bang? Perhaps you think random quantum processes or unconscious brain activity were responsible? Whether you are philosophically inclined or not, the […]

The Caspian Sea, the largest inland body of water on Earth, is shrinking. Not fluctuating, not entering another natural cycle, but shrinking. For decades, scientists and policymakers treated changes in the Caspian as part of the basin’s natural variability. Water levels in the sea have always risen and fallen. But our new study shows something […]

The story of Stonehenge starts around 5,000 years ago. But its famous old stones, some of which were transported all the way from south-west Wales to Wiltshire, are just part of the story. Close to the beginning of its use, the site was a cemetery, with dozens of people laid to rest. That so many […]

It’s 50 years since the intense heat of the 1976 drought hit the UK. The country’s worst drought for 200 years, and one of the most severe ever, left reservoirs dry, cracked land, and melted tarmac on roads. For 15 consecutive days, temperatures hit 32°C in parts of the country. The record temperature for a […]

Sir Keir Starmer's reign as UK prime minister has seen him widely characterised as a charisma-free zone. Prime Minister’s Office via Wikimedia Commons Whatever your politics or profession, leaders who dominate our collective memory are rarely the quiet, methodical ones. They are the ones who stepped on stage or screen and made people believe in […]

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London and the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden have completed the first experiment using one of the new HiLUX laser systems. These are based at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Central Laser Facility (CLF) on the Harwell Campus. About HiLUX HiLUX is […]