The Economist

The consequences of FGM for a woman’s reproductive output

The beams of protons that circulate around the 27km-circumference ring of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s biggest particle accelerator, carry as much kinetic energy as an American aircraft-carrier sailing at just under six knots. Andrew Geraci’s equipment, on the other hand, comprises a glass bead 300 billionths of a metre across, held in…

What distantly related pandas reveal about genetics

TAKE a cardboard disc and punch two holes in it, close to, and on either side of, its centre. Thread a piece of string through each hole. Now, pull on each end of the strings and the disc will spin frenetically—first in one direction as the strings wind around each other, and then in the…

A new synchrotron is about to start up in a surprising part of the world

Most schools teach a heavily distorted view of what the world looks like

A group of researchers have identified about 500 micrometeorites from an unlikely source: gutter sediment from the roofs of buildings in two of Europe’s capital cities.

Knowing a protein’s whereabouts within a cell will help researchers to determine its job

Finding exoplanets has become routine. The next step is to try to photograph them