“Right now, we’re inside a computer program?” Asks a very a perplexed Neo in the 1999 classic, The Matrix. He has just realised that the world around him is virtual reality. While The Matrix is fictitious, according to some scientists, it’s very easy for us to confuse virtual reality for, well, reality. The quote opens [...]
Archive for Favourites
Mar
10
Oct
29
Internet turns 43 today
Growing up in the 1990s, I remember when the internet was starting to reach into our homes. I remember printing penguin photos from The Web on paper with awkward holes on the side. I remember the the first time I flirted with boys it was online, and I remember my mother stopping dinner to check [...]
Oct
15
Those crazy lil chemicals called Love
Love is a many-splendored thing. There are many splendid hormones and chemicals that flood your brain and induce that curious, almost drug like state, of “going gaga”. Indeed, a bunch of intriguing human and animal experiments have unraveled the key processes involved in love. And they tell us that there is no magic to the [...]
Sep
22
IgNobel Awards 2012: Sloshing Coffee, Chimp Butts and Ponytail Forces
Every year, Harvard University turns its hat backward, drops its pants and plays it cool by hosting the very tongue-in-cheek IgNobel awards. The prize celebrates “Improbable” research, that is, work that “makes people laugh and then think.” It’s a friendly counterpart to the Nobel Prizes, which are announced soon after the IgNobels. Past winners of [...]
Dec
15
Rats free friends from cages and share chocolate
The rat race isn’t too harsh after all. Turns out the distress shown by a trapped rat will encourage another rat to spring the trap and free the rodent. New Scientist Magazine reports Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal and Peggy Mason at the University of Chicago housed 60 rats in pairs. Two weeks later, one of each [...]
Oct
16
Mosquitoes harmonize to have sex
Producing an annoying sound may seem like an unlikely way to attract a mate. But male and female mosquitoes buzz at each other to signal their interest, which sometimes leads to a harmonic duet (Click here to see them action). As New Scientist reports – to investigate why mosquitoes would bother harmonising Lauren Cator and [...]
Aug
4
Treating sewage like a rock star
New Scientist Reports While revellers danced to Pulp, Coldplay and Kanye West this past weekend at the annual Splendour in the Grass festival in north Queensland, Australia, it’s unlikely that many had sewage systems top of mind. Yet whether or not they realised it, the infrastructure sorting their slurry is one of the greenest music [...]
Jun
18
Chinese Medicine brings promising treatment where the West failed
New Scientist reports A hooked herb, root extract and a dash of bark – it may sound like a witches’ brew, but these compounds could provide treatments for diseases that have so far foiled western doctors, such as Parkinson’s and irritable bowel syndrome. For over 2000 years Chinese doctors have treated “the shakes” – now [...]