Preventing future pandemics, the secrets of the Higgs boson and the surprising roots of plastic surgery
February 2020
Today in Focus
Manchester City: following the money
The Gene Gap: Common threads
Episode 2: who decides what should happen next?
The Gene Gap: Common threads
Episode 1: what does it mean to be human?
The Gene Gap: Common threads
Episode 3: can we trust science to police itself?
May 2019
Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini – review
How science sowed the seeds of racism
April 2016
A short history of equations
Without Claude Shannon's information theory there would have been no internet
Alok Jha: How to make communications faster and take up less space on a hard disk
November 2015
Delhi's air pollution is causing a health crisis. So, what can be done?
The city’s toxic air has been linked to allergies, respiratory conditions, birth malformations and increasing incidence of cancers. But as a recent car-free experiment showed, action to cut pollution can be effective
October 2015
Alcohol lubricates the camaraderie essential to Antarctic survival
Alok Jha
Antarctica is a dangerous place where one false drunken move can be deadly. But social bonds are vital in this bleak continent, and it would be a shame if some bases were made dry
September 2015
Building the atom bomb: the full story of the Nevada Test Site
The Nevada Test Site was established a few years after the end of the second world war, against the fear of an all-out nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.
May 2015
Wasting water is a luxury we can no longer afford
Alok Jha
Worrying about how much water to drink each day is misleading – our real problem is the growing shortage that threatens four billion people on Earth
Water: the strangest chemical in the universe – video
You think you know water, but you don't. It's odd. And if it wasn't so odd, you wouldn't be here
Water: the weirdest liquid on the planet
H20 is so common and so familiar that it is mundane, yet the more we examine this liquid, the stranger it gets, as its molecular attributes hide peculiarities that make its behaviour improbable and astonishing
January 2015
When you wish upon a star: nuclear fusion and the promise of a brighter tomorrow
A French experimental nuclear fusion reactor could be the site of breakthroughs that will provide limitless, clean energy and secure the planet’s future, writes Alok Jha
July 2014
The Do Something challenge
Learn to surf: 'In that first glide to the beach, I was hooked'
A short history of equations
The Fourier transform lets you have your cake and understand it
May 2014
A short history of equations
What is Newton's second law of motion?
It explains force, whichever way it is happening
April 2014
Do Something brainy
Try stargazing wherever you are
A short history of equations
E=mc2: Einstein's equation that gave birth to the atom bomb
March 2014
Shortcuts
Cosmos: how Seth Macfarlane has remade Carl Sagan's classic TV series
Alok Jha: The creator of Family Guy and Ted has put his millions into a lavish 13-part show that befits 21st-century science
