Light-based quantum computer takes minutes to do a 2.5-billion-year task
The most important mathematical work in China’s long history is Jiuzhang suanshu (‘Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art’), a second BC text compiled by generations of scholars. Now a novel kind of...
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Changing the game
With the global pandemic keeping many in isolation, gaming offers a unique space to build online communities, forge genuine, enduring friendships, and provide much-needed entertainment and escapism....
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Next generation GM using synthetic bacteria paves way for materials revolution
All living things on Earth are made from protein building blocks that are created from the same 20 chemical units, called amino acids. With names like serine, leucine and alanine, nature strings...
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Vaccination and the Victorians: Lyon Playfair’s Battle for Science
I am currently away from the Science Museum on a study sabbatical and was fascinated to find that my historical research chimes with contemporary debates, notably about the purpose, safety and...
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Can we feed the world without wrecking it?
As the planet reels from the effects of climate change and extreme weather, its burgeoning human population is placing unsustainable pressure on the Earth’s life support systems. How can we feed the...
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The Fearful Past and Hopeful Future of Cancer Care
One in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime, yet more of us than ever before are living longer and more comfortably with the disease, and beyond. The treatment of cancer has...
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Happy Birthday Margaret Bourke-White!
Nicknamed “Maggie the Indestructible”, Margaret Bourke-White was the world’s first female war correspondent. Born on 14 June 1904 in the Bronx, New York, Margaret would go on to travel the world and...
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Happy Birthday Mary Somerville!
I am extremely deaf, and my memory […] is failing, but not for mathematical and scientific subjects. I am still able to read books on the higher algebra for four or five hours in the morning, and even...
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What awaits us in 2024?
‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future!’ This wry quotation has been attributed to various figures, from the Nobel prize-winning quantum physicist Niels Bohr to legendary...
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Dawn of a new era for synthetic life
In the laboratory that witnessed the dawn of the molecular biology revolution seven decades ago, scientists are creating new kinds of life, and accelerating the pace of evolution. Proteins are the...
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Happy Alice Ball Day!
An Introduction to Hansen’s Disease Leprosy is a disease that has existed for at least 4,000 years, with symptoms recorded in writing as early as 600BC. In the past, the term “leprosy” was more...
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Happy birthday, Matilde Montoya!
Born on 14 March 1859 in Mexico City, Mexico, Matilde Petra Montoya Lafragua was brought up as though an only child, following the death of her sister. Matilde Montoya. Source: Universidad Nacional...
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