Alison Campbell • Feb 25, 2019 •
The hominid known as “Ardi” (a specimen of Ardipithecus ramidus) was discovered in 1994, at a site near Ethiopia’s Awash River. Once excavated, it turned out that this was – for its age – a remarkably complete specimen: 125 fossilised bones, comprising most of the skull, teeth, hands & feet, pelvis, and the lower sections of the arms & legs. This … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Nov 28, 2018 •
Time moves on; this story has too. Readers might like to try my more recent piece, Genome-edited babies – what’s the worry?, which covers the biological aspects of what was done. For those following the news that a Hong Kong-based researcher claims to have brought to term human gene-edited babies: hold the horses. I’ve been trying to put a story on … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 21, 2018 •
David Tuffley, Griffith University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. We have all heard the dire predictions about robots coming to steal our jobs. Some would even have us believe these silicon bogeymen are coming to kill us. It plays straight into people’s darkest fears about technology. When … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 05, 2016 •
Scientists have just reported that in the lab, the Zika virus can infect and destroy neural stem cells that give rise to the brain’s cerebral cortex. Updated 6/3/2016 to include links to new papers Zika is the virus spread by mosquitoes (and more rarely by sexual transmission) that is currently causing concern across … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Jul 05, 2013 •
Here’s a simple game that might amuse readers for a few minutes. It’s an easy game meant for everyone, on the National Geographic website. Your challenge is simply to order the species by how many of their genes are also found in humans. Give it a go and let us know how you get on. Read More
Ken Perrott • Aug 28, 2012 •
Zach Weinersmith and Sean Carroll recently blogged about subjective and objective morality (see Pankration Ethics and Morality and Basketball). Their ideas are interesting but I found their comparison of physical laws and moral laws with the rules of basketball and … Continue reading → … Read More
Aimee Whitcroft • Feb 20, 2012 •
We’re back! And with a minimum of difficulties this week :) This week, Elf and aimee talk of a new soft motor, ROBOBEES, a teeeeeensy chameleon (squee!), hacking yoghurt, some very ancient art, ROBOBEES, investing in yourself, knitting needles and water bubbles and space, quantum computing for beginners, sequencing genomes on a USB stick-sized device [...] … Read More
Ken Perrott • Jan 04, 2011 •
There has been a lot of debate recently about the role of science in deciding moral questions. And I am sure this will continue as scientific investigations reveal more about our morality. One issue which keeps coming up, though, is … Continue reading → … Read More
Ken Perrott • Jul 28, 2010 •
I have been watching some of the videos from the Edge seminar THE NEW SCIENCE OF MORALITY. There will eventually be about 10 hours of talks and discussions posted on the Edge site. From the few presentations I have seen … Continue reading → … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Jun 23, 2010 •
At the same time as we were learning that Vegetarians and Vegans might be more empathic than Omnivores we were also discovering the nature of empathy in Ravens. Published in PLoS One recently was a paper called “Do Ravens Show Consolation? Responses to Distressed Others” looking at the behaviour of Ravens and the implications for [...] … Read More