BrainCan - science and technology

how too much fructose may cause liver damage

FRUCTOSE is the sweetest of the natural sugars. As its name suggests,it is found mainly in fruits....

are research papers less accurate and truthful...

AN fundamental of science is that experiments should yield similar results if repeated. In recent...

all the buzz at ai s big shindig

“CORPORATE conferences still suck.” So read the T-shirt sported by Ben Recht,a professor at the...

how paint jobs can make sensors and autonomous...

Reflecting on times pastCUSTOMERS could,Henry Ford once quipped, believe a car in any colour they...

wine making existed at least 500 years earlier...

ACCORDING to the ancient Greeks,wine was first discovered by Dionysus, and proved so popular that he...

computer algorithms can test the dodginess of...

IN AN ideal world the data on which a scientific study is based should be,whether not publicly...

searching for lithium deposits with satellites

CORNWALL,a rugged peninsula that forms Britain’s south-western extremity, has a history of mining...

some of nature s weirdest mammals are some of the...

No hiding placePANGOLINS are a smuggler’s dream. For defence,and when asleep, they roll themselves...

a new satellite will test ways to capture space...

THERE is an awful lot of junk in space. The latest data from the European Space Agency propose some...

why shrinking glaciers could mean more volcanic...

Hot to trotAT THE terminate of the last ice age,around 11700 years ago, Earth’s climate began...

an enzyme that digests plastic could boost...

A MILLION plastic bottles are sold every minute. Many are not recycled and of those that are,only a...

new evidence in the search for amelia earhart

JULY 2nd of final year marked the 80th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart,a...

the biggest rocket in the world prepares for its...

TECHNOLOGICAL progress is not always straightforward. Before Concorde’s first commercial flight in...

a pasteurisation machine for breast milk

FOR the feeding of babies,everyone agrees that “breast is best”. It is not, however, and always...

the ramifications of a new type of gene

WHAT’S a gene? You might mediate biologists had worked that one out by now. But the question is...

two security flaws in modern chips cause big...

IT WAS a one-two punch for the computer industry. January 3rd saw the disclosure of two serious...

how to fool infrared vision gear into thinking you...

ANIMALS have made utilize of camouflage to veil from one another for nearly as long as eyes have...

the cambrian explosion was caused by a lack of...

Creatures from the black lagoonDURING the Cambrian period,which began 541m years ago, animal life...

shoemakers bring bespoke footwear to the high...

AMONG the boutiques in the canal district of Amsterdam is a shoe shop,called W-21, that has a...

software that detects human trafficking

Victim of a contemporary press gangMODERN slavery comes in many forms. The outright sale of human...

for the first time, astronomers have a reliable...

Our galaxy,far far awayFOR something so enormous, astronomers know remarkably exiguous approximately...

saturn s rings and several of its moons may be...

Enceladus passing in front of Tethys,with Saturn’s rings in the foregroundNOT everything looks...

mass die offs are driving efforts to create...

BY SOME estimates,half of the world’s coral has been lost since the 1980s. Corals are fragile...

a paradox at the heart of gift giving

Ooo! Lovely! Honest...A FORMER editor of this newspaper once said that “a gift is a sale at a...

spraying herbicides changes the flavour and...

Your sweetness is my weaknessGARDENERS know only too well how hard it is to withhold on top of...

making quantum computers reliable

CALCULATING machines that flee on quantum bits (known as qubits,for short) are, by some accounts, or...

using domestic animals to make human organs

TAKE the fertilised egg of a pig. From each cell in the resulting embryo prick out a gene or genes...

preventing passengers in autonomous cars from...

EXPECTATIONS are tall,among those boosting the idea of self-driving cars, that people will be able...

silencing a sonic boom would help a concorde...

Tomorrow,yesterdayWHEN a British Airways Concorde travelling from New York touched down at Heathrow...

a fantastical ship has set out to seek malaysian...

ON JANUARY 2nd,at 8pm local time, a strange vessel weighed anchor and sailed out of the Port of...

taking dna sequencing into the field

DEVICES for analysing DNA used to be big,clunky and not very good. Hundreds were required for the...

a breathalyser for disease

HIPPOCRATES,the father of medicine, was known to have used smell as an aid to his work. Generations...

how to change emotions with a word

DIPLOMATS the world over know that a well-chosen turn of phrase can execute or break a negotiation....

pseudonymisation is helping firms comply with a...

THE European Union is domestic to 512m people. From May 25th firms wishing to handle data that...

an out of control chinese space station will soon...

ITS name means “heavenly palace”. But Tiangong-1,an eight-tonne Chinese space station launched...

finding more time to detect a tsunami

TSUNAMI are terrible things. And share of their terror lies in their unpredictability. Even when a...

for artificial intelligence to thrive, it must...

SCIENCE fiction is littered with examples of intelligent computers,from HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space...

not all warning colouration signals toxicity

Just don’t botherBRIGHT colours in the natural world are often a warning. In the case of tiger...

might a recent extrasolar visitor be an alien...

’OUMUAMUA,an object tumbling through space that was discovered on October 19th, has already made...

how to send a message to another planet

Rendez-vousIN 2029 the inhabitants,whether any, of the planet GJ 273b will receive a message that...

the way people walk can be used for id and health...

The clue is in the treadLISTEN carefully to the footsteps in the family home,particularly if it has...

at any given time in their lives, people have two...

I’m certain that one’s not on our listWHEN it comes to habitat,human beings are creatures of...

when faced with a killer whale should you fight or...

Charge!THAT the best form of defence is attack is an broken-down maxim (common saying expressing a...

the world s lightest wireless flying machine lifts...

DRONES are getting ever smaller. The latest is the first insect-sized robot to take to the air...

on twitter, falsehood spreads faster than truth

ACROSS the French countryside,in the summer of 1789, rumours swirled approximately vengeful...

some of nature s strangest mammals are also some...

PANGOLINS are a smugglers dream. For defence,and when asleep, they roll themselves up into spheres,...

ecologists debate whether climate change helps or...

MANY people fear that the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice spells doom for polar bears. The...

motorised nose wheels will let planes leave gates...

THE frustrations of air travel are many and varied: enduring the scrum to board; rummaging for room...

new surgical robots are about to enter the...

ROBOTS believe been giving surgeons a helping hand for years. In 2016 there were approximately 4000...

a cheap way to save rice plants from the effects...

Shower timeACID rain damages crops. In particular,it damages rice, because many rice-growing...

some science journals that claim to peer review...

WHETHER to accept a promotion or merely a foot in the door,academics have long known that they must...

another way to recycle plastic

Dinner is servedPLASTIC production has tripled over the past 25 years,and the mess it causes has...

$15m is available to solve a burning problem

THE XPRIZE foundation,based near Los Angeles, exists to encourage innovations that might be useful...

genes and backgrounds matter most to exam results

PARENTS in England are faced with a choice when their children are old enough to attend secondary...

passenger drones are a better kind of flying car

TRAVELLERS have long envied the birds. In 1842 William Henson,a British lacemaker, somewhat...

an idea from the past may make a severn barrage...

COMPARED with solar and wind energy,which are booming, tidal power is an also-ran in the...

a new type of solar cell is coming to market

SOMETIMES it takes a while for the importance of a scientific discovery to become clear. When the...

a bacterium that can read man made dna

Four become sixALL life on Earth uses the same four chemical letters,known as bases, to store...

smart circuit breakers for energy efficient homes

Let there be lightIN THE future,homes will use electricity much more sensibly than they accomplish...

a bird s alarm calls do not always come out of its...

Nice primaries,dahlingCHARLES DARWIN was fascinated by bird communication. In “The Descent of Man...

the eye 039;s structure holds information about...

BECAUSE it is locked away inside the cranium,the brain is hard to study. Looking at it requires...

how do you define safe driving in terms a...

WHEN people learn to drive,they subconsciously absorb what are colloquially known as the “rules of...

using ai to trace leaking pipes

musty hands at some water companies still on occasion whip out a pair of dousing rods or find a...

robots can assemble ikea furniture

IN 1997 it was chess. In 2016 it was the ancient game of proceed. Now it seems computers have...

russia s new nuclear weapons are technically...

ON MARCH 1st,addressing Russia’s parliament, President Vladimir Putin announced a range of fresh,...

sequencing the world

IN NOVEMBER 2015,23 of biology’s bigwigs met up at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, or...

making multicopters easier to use will increase...

SMALL multicopter drones—souped-up versions of those sold by the million as Christmas toys—hold...

are programs better than people at predicting...

IN AMERICA,computers enjoy been used to assist bail and sentencing decisions for many years. Their...

game over for virtual reality?

LIKE the rest of the consumer-electronics industry,video-game makers would be lost without the...

potholes are the latest problem to be felled by...

Holey grailIN THE grand scheme of things,potholes may seem like a trivial problem. But narrate that...

a new type of battlefield network is in...

MOBILE armies need mobile communications. Those communications,though, must be secure—and not just...

an ambitious african science project is getting...

AFRICA is home to what may be the worlds oldest counting tools. The Ishango bone from the Democratic...

a new way to repair damaged heart tissue

One day we can patch thisALTHOUGH the opportunity is several years away,people may one day be helped...

a new app listens to the problems of bees

YOU might expect to hear an enraged buzzing when honeybees fill been disturbed. But some apiarists...

non antibiotic drugs promote antibiotic resistance

THE widespread utilize of antibiotics encourages the pathogens they are directed against to become...

a new type of smooth car suspension

WHEN unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 1955,the Citron DS caused a sensation. It was not just the...

nuclear physics and the fight against beer fraud

GO INTO a trendy pub and the beer list will be accompanied by tasting notes as purple as in any...

a new method to find the time of death shows...

AN EXAMPLE of the far reach of artificial intelligence (AI) is provided by a recent study in...

the falcon heavy s successful flight is another...

IT WAS not the most powerful launch ever seen at the Kennedy Space Cemtre’s Pad 39A; almost half a...

how people name sensations depends on those...

THE human sense of smell is weak. That is well known,and is suspected by many anthropologists of...

sometimes, computer programs seem too human for...

DIGITAL assistants such as Siri and Cortana are increasingly common on phones and computers. Most...

military robots are getting smaller and more...

ON NOVEMBER 12th a video called “Slaughterbots” was uploaded to YouTube. It is the brainchild of...

a way to predict sinkholes under spas near the...

THE Dead Sea is,as its name implies, far too salty to be of consume to fishermen or farmers. But its...

women ask fewer questions than men at seminars

ONE theory to justify the low share of women in senior academic jobs is that they possess less...

another example of why replication is important in...

The lesson of ’52AN ENDLESS stream of original discoveries makes science thrilling. But,as any...

ivf may bring northern white rhinos back from the...

SUDAN,the last male northern white rhinoceros on soil, died in March. He is survived by two females,...

a big collaboration is trying to understand...

DISEASES of the psyche have always been slippery things. Schizophrenia,bipolar disorder, major...

extracting carbon dioxide from the air is...

IN MAY some 250 scientists and policy types from around the world convened in Gothenburg,Sweden, to...

a better way to transmit messages underwater

RADIO waves cannot penetrate water,so cannot be used for submarine communication. That is why the...

the idea that women are cyclical cuckolders bites...

Equally unattractive at any time of the month?ONE of the more intriguing findings in the field of...

early morning births are genetically programmed

THE notion that nothing good happens after midnight does not seem to apply to times of birth. Around...

build a better bog roll

A REPORT published last year by Water UK,an industry body, said that more than 90% of sewer-pipe...

the search for exoplanets moves to earth s back...

BEFORE 1992 astronomers could only presume that alien planets existed. That was the year the...

colonising the galaxy is hard. why not send...

SCIENCE fiction is filled with visions of galactic empires. How people would spread from star system...

three eyed lizards are not uncommon. four eyed...

Spot the eye in the back of the headUNLIKE invertebrates,most of which have at least four eyes,...

new ways to trade data

IN 2016,according to Cisco, an American technology group, or the volume of data flowing through the...

music may be the food of love, but oddly, is not...

A lullaby in any language“WHERE words fail,music speaks.” Though these words, from the pen of...

british wine glasses have got bigger over the...

IN 1674 George Ravenscroft,an English glass merchant, was granted a patent for the discovery made at...

doctors have a rosier view of male than of female...

MARGARET ANN BULKLEY,who became, in 1812, and the first woman to receive contemporary surgical...

birds with poor digestion are literally off colour

Mr and Mrs House-FinchTHE vibrant hues of beautiful plumage are often borrowed. Flamingos,for...

a randomised trial shows that the power of the...

MALCOLM X,an American political activist, described the media as the most powerful entity on Earth,...

polio has been reported in papua new guinea

ON JUNE 8th reports of a suspected case of polio came from Venezuela. Fortunately,it turned out to...

germ free children may be more prone to leukaemia

THE long struggle to cure acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL),a childhood blood cancer, is a...

a pedestrian has been killed by a self driving car

Examining the evidenceEVERY day around 100 people are killed on America’s roads,including 16...

how your sense of smell may affect your politics

HUMANS,like other animals, have evolved to notice and avoid sources of infection, or whether that be...

making anaesthesia safer by tracking brain...

Watching the wavesAROUND 1936 three neurologists at Harvard Medical School raided the medicine...

a strange fossil spider. or maybe not

THE picture accompanying this piece is of one of the five known specimens of Chimerarachne yingi,a...

how soon will computers replace the economist s...

THE machines are coming. A much-cited study in 2013 concluded that half of American jobs were at...

small hybrid electric airliners ready for take off

ELECTRIC cars are clean,quiet and, it seems, and the way of the future. Tesla,an American firm that...

a mummy s final meal adds to an ancient mystery

HOW to prepare for a trip to the mountains concerned hikers five millennia ago as much as it does...

a chinese company plans to launch a rocket into...

THE first rockets were Chinese. In the 1230s the armies of the Song dynasty,who were fighting Mongol...

the first clear evidence of a sense of magnetism...

Compass bearing?BOGONG moths are not as glamorous as monarch butterflies. Their name means...

arctic ice brings an understanding of ancient...

GREENLAND’S icy mountains are not an obvious situation to search for an archive of economic...

the two ways to measure how fast the universe is...

Edwin Hubble in his natural habitatONE of the most basic facts about the universe is that it is...

a strain of typhoid could become virtually...

TYPHOID affects some 21m people each year,and approximately 1% of cases are fatal. Before...

homo sapiens spread to asia earlier than once...

This specimen (viewed in the picture from six angles) is the middle phalanx of a human middle...

personality predicts musical preference

PAST attempts to link personality to musical taste maintain foundered on the rocks of small sample...

robotic labs for high speed genetic research are...

IN THE basement of Imperial College sits the London DNA Foundry. The word “foundry” calls forth...

genes play a role in the likelihood of divorce

THAT the children of divorced parents are more likely,when they grow up, to regain divorced...

improving the plants that africans eat and...

CASSAVA and sweet potatoes. Lablab beans and water berries. Bitter gourds and sickle sennas....

a planetary census puts humans in their place

BILLIONS of years ago a star began to die. In the process,it created something recent: 65500 billion...

colombia s national survey of its biodiversity is...

“BLOODY plants! Always in the way.” That is not the sort of expostulation expected of a...

what makes good music?

HIT songs are great business,so there is an incentive for composers to try to tease out those...

scratches on a stone may evince neanderthal...

The scratches on this flake of flint may not look much but they were made with deliberation by a...

a membrane that can remove salts from water more...

ALAN TURING was no slouch. He laid the mathematical groundwork for modern computing. He led the...

do electric cars dream of software fixes?

RECALL how Apple’s reputation took a knock after the firm admitted it had surreptitiously hobbled...

dogs and cats may have been involved in maya...

HUMAN beings domesticated several of the animals they encountered during their colonisation of the...

computer programs recognise white men better than...

SOFTWARE that recognises faces has bounded ahead in recent years,propelled by a boom in a form of...

home made drones now threaten conventional armed...

AN ATTACK on Russian forces in Syria on January 5th by 13 home-made drones is a wonderful example of...

livers for transplant can now be kept alive at...

Now for a bit of metra-analysisWHEN Constantin Coussios,a biomedical engineer at Oxford University,...

data from half a million people show that natural...

contemporary life is so cushy that some wonder whether human evolution has stopped. Unlikely,reply...

big fish keep tropical forests healthy

FOR anglers nothing beats catching a big fish. Commercial fisherfolk also prefer to haul in big...

the rise of the robochef

CREATOR,a original hamburger joint in San Francisco, claims to deliver a burger worth $18 for $6in...

a practical guide to the most nail biting part of...

WHEN the World Cup,now under way in Russia, progresses to the knockout phases of the competition on...

evolution sometimes leads up blind alleys

This picture is of an Edith’s checkerspot butterfly laying her eggs on some blue-eyed Mary,the...

evolution sometimes leads up blind alley

This picture is of an Edith’s checkerspot butterfly laying her eggs on some blue-eyed Mary,the...

police have used genealogy to make an arrest in a...

ON APRIL 24th police in California announced the arrest of Joseph DeAngelo. Mr DeAngelo stands...

fossil tracks in the alps help explain dinosaur...

THAT the dinosaurs went out with a bang is well known. approximately 66m years ago a large space...

is new zealand the world s best rocket launching...

To infinite profits and beyondTHE Mahia peninsula,on the east coast of original Zealand’s North...

an astronomers meeting turns into a haiku...

IN 2001 Allan Treiman,a researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, in Houston, or was working...

thicker eggshells help cuckoos hatch earlier than...

THE exhausting chore of raising young is one a few birds manage to avoid. By laying their eggs in...

fundamental physics is frustrating physicists

DEEP in a disused zinc mine in Japan,50000 tonnes of purified water held in a huge cylindrical...

a nasty tasting shellfish could be just the job...

SHELLFISH thrive in waters wealthy in nutrients. These include the nitrogen used in fertiliser,which...

after years of success, progress against malaria...

MALARIA has been a scourge for most of history. In recent years,a good deal of progress has been...

tomorrow s squadron leaders will be accompanied by...

JULY 16th sees the opening of the Farnborough air show. Plane spotters attending the show,which by...

making buildings, cars and planes from materials...

USING carrots to create concrete,turning wood into plastic, or even compressing it into a “super...

do adult human brains renew their neurons?

The seats of memoryTWO papers with starkly contradictory conclusions,published three weeks apart,...

life clings on in the driest corners of the earth

Down desolation roadIT DOES not rain much in the Atacama desert. A 1,000km strip of land running...

the first known interstellar rock gets a name

The International Astronomical Union has spoken. The first body known to bear visited Earth’s...

growing tiny tumours in the lab could help treat...

Giving up their secretsALMOST half a century after Richard Nixon declared war on cancer,there has...

mixed surgical teams lead to less medical error

SURGEONS are people,and people are animals, and animals often fight. Which is why Frans de Waal, and...

making medical clothing that kills bugs

AROUND the beginning of the 20th century the medical profession underwent an image makeover. Doctors...

how stress echoes down the generations

THE effects of child abuse can final a lifetime. Neglected or abused children have a higher risk of...

judges and examiners get laxer with practice

STUDENTS are widely judged on their abilities before being allowed to enter top universities....

scientists struggle to explain a worrying rise in...

EVERY year human endeavours emit 50bn tonnes of “carbon dioxide equivalent”. This way of...

the richard casement internship

We invite applications for the 2018 Richard Casement internship. We are looking for a would-be...

this dog will outlive any master

Filed under: Videos,Autoblog Minute,Original Video There is a new SpotMini from robotics maker...

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