With the Higgs boson already in the bag, the Large Hadron Collider begins another period of data collectionIt’s 10 years to the day since evidence of the Higgs boson – the elusive particle associated with an invisible mass-giving field – was announced. But for Prof Daniela Bortoletto the memories are as fresh as ever.“I just remember joy. I remember that everybody was so happy. And what...
A giant waterlily grown at Kew Gardens has been named as a new species in the first discovery of its type in more than a century. Scientists at Kew suspected for decades there could be a third species of giant waterlilyNewly identified waterlily species is world’s largest Continue...
A Google employee raised the alarm about a chatbot he believes is conscious. A philosopher asks if he was right to do soThere’s a children’s toy, called the See ’n Say, which haunts the memories of many people born since 1965. It’s a bulky plastic disc with a central arrow that rotates around pictures of barnyard creatures, like a clock, if time were measured in roosters and pigs....
Telling five Covid-related stories, this platitudinous urban-interconnection drama offers lectures on virtue and self-sacrifice and feels like state propagandaThis interminable anthology film about the pandemic feels like being force-fed lectures on altruism, family responsibility, self-sacrifice and neighbourly forbearance by the Chinese government (which produced it). Set almost entirely in...
Cosmonauts praised in February for wearing yellow uniforms in apparent show of support for UkraineRussia-Ukraine war: live updatesThe Russian cosmonauts who were lauded at the outset of the war on Ukraine in February for appearing to show their support for their invaded neighbours with yellow and blue spacesuits have been pictured on the International Space Station (ISS) holding the flags of the...
Apparently EVERYONE who is ANYONE is getting the new variant it is all the rageSign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are publishedGet all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue...
Pleiades star cluster in Taurus marks month-long time of remembrance and celebrationMidsummer is definitely not a time of the year that northern hemisphere observers think about looking for the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus; January and February are far more favourable.However, if you move to the southern hemisphere – New Zealand to be precise – the cluster, which is also known as Matariki,...
The new species is also the largest giant waterlily on the planet, with leaves growing up to three metres in the wildA giant waterlily grown at Kew Gardens has been named as new to science, in the first discovery of its type in more than a century.Scientists at the south-west London garden suspected for decades there could be a third species of giant waterlily and worked with researchers in its...
A new wave of scientists argues that mainstream evolutionary theory needs an urgent overhaul. Their opponents have dismissed them as misguided careerists – and the conflict may determine the future of biology Continue reading...