- Hakim Yadi
Usually, when the immune system meets something foreign, the offending intruder is swiftly attacked and neutralised. Thankfully things are different during pregnancy. But how does a baby developing in the uterus slip under its mother's immunological radar...
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- Chris Smith
Simpsons fans will know only too well the opening sequence to the cartoon in which Homer discovers, during his commute, that he’s taken some of his work home with him – in the form of a radioactive fuel rod from the nuclear power plant! Unsurprisingly, the lump of material he subsequently throws out of the car window is glowing an ethereal green colour. But therein lies multiple myths of atomic-powered proportions, because most radioactive substances don’t really glow at all, let alone light up green!
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- Helen Rogers
The European Parliament voted recently to include CO2 emissions from the aviation industry in its carbon trading scheme from 2011, but did they get it wrong by also including the impact of contrail formation and emissions of nitrogen oxides? What would happen, for instance, if Parliament adopted the same methodology for shipping? Helen Rogers explains why it's not all "plane" sailing…
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- Philip Strange
In 1943 a chemist working in Basel became the first person to experience the effects of LSD, albeit by accident. But how did he made the drug, where did it originate and how does it work? Philip Strange explains...
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- Véronique Pagé
Antimatter can make anything - even anybody - vanish merely by touching it. But at the moment antimatter itself appears to have been the victim of an elaborate plot that has led to its own near-complete disappearance. So where are the anti-electrons, the anti-protons, the anti-people and their anti-cups of tea? Veronique Page hunts for clues to explain the absence of antimatter…
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- Robinson Fulweiler
Climate change has been blamed with altering the environment – from animal migrations to sea level. Now it's also affecting nutrient cycling. Excess nitrogen discharged into estuaries used to be removed by a bacterial process in the sediments. But recent research shows a dramatic change...
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- Chris Smith
Swine flu, SARS, Bird Flu, HIV, Dengue, Hepatitis C, Ebola - the human race is awash with new infections - but where did they come from and what else may be waiting to pounce? In this article Cambridge University virologist Chris Smith looks at the origins of emerging viral infections...
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- Reto Schneider
What happens when a human child grows up with a chimpanzee brother? Does a dog think that a robot dog belongs to the same species? If three men meet who all think they are Jesus, how do they decide who is right? The answers to these questions you can find in by peer reviewed scientific research. Swiss science writer Reto U. Schneider collected them for years and published them in the “The Mad Science Book”. Now he is wondering: which one is the weirdest of them all?
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- Dave Ansell
How were superconductors discovered, what are they, how do they work, what can they do for us, and what's new in the field of superconductivity.
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- Davina Stevenson
Nature produces a seemingly limitless number of compounds that are valuable for treating disease. Over 30% of the top-ten drugs prescribed in hospitals owe their origins directly to nature. In this article Davina explores how drugs find their way out of a plant and into a patient.
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