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In the latest issue of Double Helix magazine, we feature solar powered cars racing from Darwin to Adelaide. They zoomed to the finish line last week. The winner is Dutch team Nuon with their car Nuna 8!

Hidden within our cells, DNA is the hard drive of the human body. Each copy of DNA contains instructions for all the proteins needed to make a person. But this creative compendium is always under attack. This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three people who found out what’s repairing our genetic treasure.

The longest chain of continental volcanoes in the world was recently discovered in Australia. It stretches from near Mackay in Queensland down to Cosgrove in Victoria.

Written by Azmina Hossain The crown-of-thorns is a venomous starfish that lives in the Great Barrier Reef. Growing up to massive lengths of 80 centimetres and having a body entirely covered in toxic spikes, the starfish is almost indestructible and is a vicious predator. They eat coral, the building blocks of the Great Barrier Reef. […]

For millions of years, stick insects roamed the beautiful Lord Howe Island. Then one fateful day in 1918, a ship ran aground and fleeing rats decided to make the island home – and stick insects their dinner. Within a few years, people believed the insects were extinct.

It looks like the Ebola epidemic that has ravaged West Africa for over a year may soon be under control. Last week, there were only a handful of new cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, scientists are getting closer to a vaccine to prevent these outbreaks from occurring again.

Sometimes watching someone yawn makes you want to yawn yourself. And sometimes, watching a yawning video or even just reading the word yawn will do it. Feel like yawning now? It seems a very human reflex, but it turns out that budgies do it too.

NASA has spent the last nine years navigating New Horizons towards Pluto. Within days, the first high resolution images will be beamed back to earth giving the world its first real insight into what makes the tiny ‘planet’ tick.

Fossilisation is not a gentle process. Flesh, skin, organs and feathers are often destroyed, leaving just the bones. Now, a team of scientists think they may have found something protected deep within those bones – dinosaur blood!

Written by Beth Askham Make your own climbing frog, using the power of friction. You will need A 20 cm x 20 cm piece of cardboard Two 5 cm long pieces of drinking straw String Sticky tape Scissors Coloured pens, pencils, crayons, paints or textas Other decorations What to do On your piece of cardboard […]