Category: Technology

Plants can grow with much less light than previously thought, according to a new study on tiny water-based organisms called microalgae that has been published in Nature Communications. The German-led team of researchers lowered light sensors into Arctic water to a depth of 50 metres to test how low light levels must become before plant […]

Scientists have estimated the size of an extinct flying reptile called a pterosaur, based on fragments of a fossil finger bone discovered in southern England in June 2022. These results reveal it to be the largest British pterosaur yet described, and the second-largest Jurassic pterosaur worldwide. This 149 million-year-old fossil, known as EC K2576 and […]

For the past few years, a series of controversies have rocked the well-established field of cosmology. In a nutshell, the predictions of the standard model of the universe appear to be at odds with some recent observations. There are heated debates about whether these observations are biased, or whether the cosmological model, which predicts the […]

With all the fanfare of the Eurovision Song Contest in May this year, it is possible that many missed another European song contest that was taking place at around the same time – the Polifonia Song Contest.  Organised by Polifonia, an EU-funded research initiative aimed at protecting and promoting Europe’s musical heritage, the competition sought to […]

The groans of pain as we get up from the sofa or the sound of crunching cartilage when taking the stairs are all too familiar. Many of us look down at our aching knees and curse them – wondering why they seemingly evolved to hurt so much. But the human knee has a complex evolutionary […]

In many African communities, fire hazards are a concern due to the materials used for building and daily activities such as cooking and heating. The risks are increased by the use of highly flammable materials in homes and the absence of fire prevention measures. A major fire in a Johannesburg building in 2023, for example, […]

UK researchers have begun designing a new device to detect the elusive dark matter particles thought to make up more than 85% of the content of the Universe. A preliminary award of £8 million from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Infrastructure Fund will support a consortium of UK universities, led by Imperial College London. […]

The natural world is filled with variety. Ecological systems can look very different in different parts of the Earth. Every species has genetic variation that means individuals can look and behave very differently. Diseases can affect people differently, with some suffering more serious complications than others. I believe this pervasive variation, which I call poikilosis, […]

Generative artificial intelligence is poison for human creativity, according to conventional media wisdom. “Plagiarism machines” is how Breaking Bad author Vince Gilligan has described the large language models (LLMs) used to train the likes of ChatGPT and Claude. Hundreds of copyright claims have been filed against AI companies – from Stable Diffusion (sued by Getty […]

The natural world is filled with variety. Ecological systems can look very different in different parts of the Earth. Every species has genetic variation that means individuals can look and behave very differently. Diseases can affect people differently, with some suffering more serious complications than others. I believe this pervasive variation, which I call poikilosis, […]