Happy New Year and welcome to 2020! Following the celebrations of ‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,’ you’ll be forgiven for experiencing ‘The Most Hungover Time of the (New) Year.’ Let’s face it – who did not overindulge during the holidays? So if you need a few minutes of peace and quiet to nurse […]
What do you get if you cross a parrot with a centipede? Take a moment…A walkie-talkie! Yes, as anyone with a kindergartener knows, the old jokes really are the best. But when it comes to crossing one animal with another – also known as hybridization – it’s time to get serious. Although the idea of […]
It is the stuff of science fiction and of conspiracy theory. Brain-implantable chips that monitor our health, overcome physical limitations, improve memory, or track us, control our thoughts and manipulate our actions. Or even change the way we perceive and interact with reality. A technology to improve the lives of those living with a disability […]
These days, when we think about the advances in transportation technology in the automobile or aerospace industries, we tend to think of the reality of semi-autonomous cars or the potential of our drive to get to Mars. The images we conjure are romantic – intrepid explorers facing the desolation of an unknown planet, starting afresh […]
For readers who keep up to date with new issues in psychology (we know, but bear with us…) a recent discussion of megalophobia must have been of some interest. Megalophobia is a disorder defined as the fear of large objects, or objects that are perceived as being larger than they ‘should’ be. An example could […]
Habits can be hard to break. That impulse purchase that breaks our budget, that extra slice of pizza despite our diets, that glass of wine to relax on a Friday evening. Whatever the form of our own personal kryptonite, habitual behaviors are a sort of neural wiring and as such ingrained and a real challenge […]
Recently there has been much talk about the process and ethics of moving materials that may be subject to later analysis and scrutiny into ‘secure storage.’ But the quarantining of assets such as, shall we say ‘electronic data,’ is not the only target of enhanced protection and safeguarding. In fact, around 195 million miles from […]
Back in 2011, a ‘wild card’ movie based on The Dark Fields, a science fiction novel by Alan Glynn, hit the box office to unexpected success. Grossing more than $160 million on a slender $27 million budget and starring Hollywood icons Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper, the narrative follows writer Eddie Morra as he […]
Sometimes it is tempting to think that the science of the cleanroom is all about lunar landings and semi-conductors. But the reality is that the spectrum of research conducted in contamination-controlled environments is much broader and cannot be confined to the traditional silos of heavy engineering or silicon-wafer technology. Take, for example, the innovations around […]
Homeopathic Medicine Students of British history will no doubt recall the highs and lows of the Royal Family, that patrilineal dynasty that has ruled the island and the later ‘Empire’ seemingly forever. The institution of the Monarchy has long been the subject of debate and discussion with royalists clashing…well, royally…with abolitionists, who increasingly view the […]