The Conversation

The Conversation

[:eu]The next scientific breakthrough could come from the history books[:]

Treating the history of science as a linear story of progression doesn’t reflect wholly how ideas emerge and are adapted, forgotten, rediscovered or ignored. While we are happy with the notion that the arts can return to old ideas, for example in neoclassicism, this idea is not commonly recognised in science. Is this constraint really…
The Conversation

[:eu]If atoms are mostly empty space, why do objects look and feel solid?[:]

The reason you feel things as solid is all to do with electrons.
The Conversation

[:eu]Why cancer rates are increasing disproportionately in women – and what we can do about it[:]

The World Health Organisation has estimated that two fifths of the 14m cases of cancer that are diagnosed every year are preventable. The main preventable causes of cancer are diet, smoking and infection. Of these, diet is likely to most disproportionately affect women over the coming years.
The Conversation

[:eu]‘Seeing’ music or ‘tasting’ numbers? Here’s what we can learn from people with synaesthesia[:]

Researchers are trying to train synaesthesia-like associations in people who don’t have the condition.
The Conversation

[:eu]How we can make super-fast hyperloop travel a reality[:]

Musk originally intended the Hyperloop to cover the 600km route from Los Angeles to San Francisco at an average speed of about 960kph, reducing what’s currently a 12-hour train journey to just 35 minutes. Although funding has since been channelled into a bullet train service for this route, the idea of the hyperloop has attracted…
The Conversation

[:eu]First ‘animal cells’ could have been created by viruses[:]

When a virus infects a living cell, it hijacks and reprograms the cell to turn it into a virus-producing factory. Now scientists at the University of California have for the first time discovered just how extensive that reprogramming can be, effectively turning bacterial cells into animal or plant-like cells. This might even be how the…
The Conversation

[:eu]So you want to build a Death Star? Here’s how to get started[:]

So would it possible in the real world? Let’s not worry about the vast quantities of raw materials required.
The Conversation

[:eu]Five amazing ways plants have created new technologies[:]

Plants are often used not just as food and clothing but as part of complex technologies. Here are some more amazing ways we can use vegetation.
The Conversation

[:eu]Ancient Syrian bitumen discovered in Anglo-Saxon boat at Sutton Hoo[:]

Sutton Hoo in East Anglia is one of the most important archaeological sites in England. The weapons, clothing and other objects buried in the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries show that trade networks in the 6th and 7th century reached as far away as Europe and Asia. Now new research conducted at the British Museum and University of…