The search for new elements on the periodic table started with a blast
Jan 07, 2016 06:22 am UTC| Science
So the periodic table has expanded again with the addition late last year of four new superheavy elements, bringing the known total up to 118. But the hunt for new elements started with efforts to develop nuclear power...
Explainer: what is a hydrogen bomb?
Jan 07, 2016 01:40 am UTC| Science
Reports that North Korea has launched a fourth nuclear weapons test backed by convincing seismic data have caused widespread alarm. North Korean officials announced in advance that the test would involve a totally...
What does it mean to think and could a machine ever do it?
Jan 07, 2016 01:29 am UTC| Science Technology
The idea of a thinking machine is an amazing one. It would be like humans creating artificial life, only more impressive because we would be creating consciousness. Or would we? Its tempting to think that a machine that...
What science can tell us about the 'world's largest sapphire'
Jan 07, 2016 01:27 am UTC| Science
The Star of Adam, recently found in a mine in Sri Lanka, is believed to be the biggest sapphire ever discovered. It weighs in at over 1,404 carats, thats around 280g or just under ten ounces. But what do we know about the...
The trouble with taking biometric technology into schools
Jan 06, 2016 15:08 pm UTC| Science
More usually criticised for their conservative approach to technology, schools are becoming proving grounds for some of the latest biometrics and portable biomedical engineering devices. Or so it would appear, with St...
Designer nights out: good urban planning reduces drunken violence
Jan 06, 2016 03:31 am UTC| Science
Tragically, another young life has been lost in an alleged one-punch assault, this time in Brisbanes Fortitude Valley. These assaults are frightening occurrences in themselves, but also they pose much deeper questions...
Plastics of the future may be made from sulfur, not oil, putting waste to good use
Jan 05, 2016 15:02 pm UTC| Insights & Views Science
What has chemistry ever done for me, you might ask? Just as Dustin Hoffman was told by one of his would-be mentors in The Graduate, one answer is plastics one of the greatest chemical innovations of the 20th...
Electricity from farm waste: how biogas could help Malawians with no power
What the Supreme Court is doing right in considering Trump’s immunity case
US election: why it’s not the protesters’ votes that the Democrats should worry about
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects