Q&A

How much of my body could I live without?

That depends what you mean by ‘I’. If you mean your mind, your unique memories and your conscious self then, in principle at least, all the necessary information could be downloaded...

Does the number 42 have any particular significance?

The Ancient Egyptians believed that 42 demons were present at the judgment of the soul; 42 is also a perfect score in the International Mathematics Olympiad. But in modern maths its main...

What is the record for the most languages spoken by one person?

It depends on how high (or low) you set the bar of fluency. Ziad Fazah, born in Liberia, brought up in Beirut and now living in Brazil, claims to be the world's greatest living polyglot, with a...

Blog

7 things to do if you were invisible

19/03/2010 - 16:18

Scientists have created the first ‘cloak’ to make an object invisible in three dimensions by bending light around a micrometre piece of gold - a bit like water flowing around a rock in a...

Land speed record: Avoiding a big bang

19/03/2010 - 11:39

Design engineer Annie Berrisford gives her insider’s view on the BLOODHOUND SCC team’s attempt to smash the land speed record – and break the 1000 mph barrier in the process. Follow...

4 simple ways to speed up an old PC

18/03/2010 - 12:11

How to inject some life back into that ageing Windows PC PCs can age extraordinarily quickly if neglected. And if you’re anything like me you’re probably too busy to provide the care...

Features

A storm is coming

12/03/2010

Global warming is going to get worse as weather patterns like El Niño and the North Atlantic Oscillation come into sync. Robert Matthews looks at the cataclysmic changes caused by cyclical weather systems.

Swarm bots

11/03/2010

Why have one robot when you could have a thousand all working together? Ian Taylor checks out the latest buzz...

The science of sin

25/02/2010

We now have the technology to reveal the root of our darkest impulses, deep within our brains. And, says Andy Ridgway, the evidence is clear: nature wants us to be bad

Competition