As many of you know, ourselves, the earth, all stars and galaxies are made of atoms. These atoms emit light when they are excited and that is how astronomers can explore the vast universe. But this matter only accounts for 4% of the content of the universe while dark matter makes up 22% of it. An unknown type of energy dubbed “dark energy” makes up the remaining 74%.
Following a short film about the omnipresence of math in our everyday lives, whether we notice it or not, four men who eat and breathe mathematics discussed their passion: how they got into math,...
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of 1400 outstanding individuals who represent all areas of science, engineering and medicine and who form a global scientific network of the highest calibre. It exists to expand knowledge, support science and guide policy in the UK, the Commonwealth and all over the world.
Welcome to the TAM London 2010 live blog! From Saturday morning I'll be bringing you regular updates, audio clips, photos and maybe even the odd video clip from The Amazing Meeting, a two day celebration of science and critical thinking.
An ancient bristlecone pine against the Milky Way as a meteor streaks across the sky in the White mountains, California, was the winning entry in this year’s astronomy photographer of the year competition
Join scientists, artists and writers to discuss the interesting, the unusual or provocative in the past, present and future of science, culture and us, over a cup of coffee or drink.
Michael Mosley takes an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society's historical path
The NY Times writes about Henry S. Heine, a former Army microbiologist who worked for years with Bruce E. Ivins, whom the FBI has blamed for the anthrax letter attacks that killed five people in 2001. Heine told a 16-member National Academy of Sciences panel reviewing the FBI's scientific work on the investigation that he believes it is impossible that the deadly spores could have been produced undetected in Ivins's laboratory, as the FBI asserts. Heine told the panel that producing the quantity of spores in the letters would have taken at least a year of intensive work using the equipment at the army lab, an effort that would not have escaped colleagues' notice. Lab technicians who worked closely with Ivins have told Heine they saw no such work. Heine adds that, in addition, the biological containment measures where Ivins worked were inadequate to prevent the spores from floating out of the laboratory into animal cages and offices. 'You'd have had dead animals or dead people.' Asked why he is speaking out now, almost two years after Ivins's suicide, Heine says that Army officials had prohibited comment on the case, silencing him until he left the government laboratory. Although Heine does not dispute that there was a genetic link between the spores in the letters and the anthrax in Ivins's flask, Heine says samples from the flask were widely shared. 'Whoever did this is still running around out there. I truly believe that.'