Enzymes are the engines of life − machine learning tools could help scientists design new ones to tackle disease and climate change

| Insights & Views

Enzymes are molecular machines that carry out the chemical reactions that sustain all life, an ability that has captured the attention of scientists like me. Consider muscle movement. Your body releases a molecule called...

3 statistical stuff-ups that made everyday items look healthier (or riskier) than they really are

| Insights & Views

Conducting scientific studies is never easy, and there are often major disasters along the way. A researcher accidentally spills coffee on a keyboard, destroying the data. Or one of the chemicals used in the analysis is...

Want to make sure you don’t swelter in your next home? Check these 12 features before you rent or buy

| Insights & Views

Hot on the heels of the warmest spring on record, Australia is baking through another scorching summer. Heatwaves around the country contributed to the second-warmest January on record. Hot, dry, windy weather again swept...

X has been used to represent love and kisses for centuries. But how did it start?

| Insights & Views

1,000 Letters and 15,000 Kisses screamed the headline in an 1898 edition of the English newspaper, the Halifax Evening Courier. Harriet Ann McLean, a 32-year-old laundry maid, was suing Francis Charles Matthews, a green...

Is AI making us stupider? Maybe, according to one of the world’s biggest AI companies

| Insights & Views

There is only so much thinking most of us can do in our heads. Try dividing 16,951 by 67 without reaching for a pen and paper. Or a calculator. Try doing the weekly shopping without a list on the back of last weeks...

Friday essay: some tech leaders think AI could outsmart us and wipe out humanity. I’m a professor of AI – and I’m not worried

| Insights & Views

In 1989, political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted we were approaching the end of history. He meant that similar liberal democratic values were taking hold in societies around the world. How wrong could he have been?...

‘Mum, what’s the meaning of life?’ How to talk about philosophy with little kids

| Insights & Views

If your young child asks whats the meaning of life? you might laugh it off (how cute!) or freeze in panic (where do I even begin?). Its tempting to dismiss these big questions as too advanced for kids. Plato and Aristotle...