Q&A

If Earth orbits the Sun, why is the Plough always visible?

It's not the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun that matters, but its tilt of around 23 degrees to the plane of the Solar System. That leads to some constellations being too low in the sky to see...

Can very strong odours damage our sense of smell?

The actual sensation of smell can’t do any harm, but the substances that cause it might.

There’s a difference between temporary and permanent effects. Your whole olfactory...

Is there anything smaller than a quark?

Following the discovery of quarks inside protons and neutrons in the early 1970s, some theorists suggested quarks might themselves contain particles known as 'preons'. The idea wasn't entirely...

Blog

Genome mapping

12/03/2010 - 17:27

The ultimate check-up could become part of routine health scans within the next few years, offering us the chance to see the makeup of our DNA. Genome sequencing reveals the pattern of a person...

Do you know what this is?

12/03/2010 - 09:58

We at Focus towers have been given a mystery to solve. Readers Bill, Bill and Chris Maddison (aged 93, 54 and 12 respectively) have sent us a picture of the object below. They bought it at a...

Stephen Baxter on terraforming

11/03/2010 - 17:05

Ever wondered what we’re going to be up to in a couple of centuries time? Science fiction author extraordinaire, Stephen Baxter, reckons we could have colonised Mars by then. In the April...

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

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