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What will make our future brighter? For thousands of years our lives have been lit by the Sun, by stars, by fire. Electricity brought new types of lights, ones we can summon at the flick of a switch.

It’s three in the morning. Nature calls. You stagger from your bed, squinting in the darkness as you blindly weave your way past a bookshelf, around the glass cabinet, and down the corridor into the smallest room in the house. Not only do the scientists John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser understand how your […]

Getting out of bed some days feels like too much effort. If only night lasted all day, just like it does for the blind Mexican cavefish. Like the fish, you just might save some energy by living in an endless night.

Written by Caitlin DevorThere’s life under ice. Scientists found an entire community of bacteria living 800 metres under the surface of glaciers in Antarctica. These bacteria rely on each other to survive in the dark, isolated, subzero lake.

Australia’s new Marine National Facility research vessel, Investigator, arrived on Tuesday to its home port of Hobart. The ship will soon take scientists and high-tech equipment to the watery parts of the world; to measure the weather, take samples from the sea floor and study marine life.

Blenders mix milk and chocolate topping. Cereal makers add sultanas and puffs to bran flakes. We all mix things every day, but we know surprisingly little about the mathematics of mixing. One of this year’s Fields Medallists is working to bridge this gap. Many people can shuffle cards, but Artur Avila can shuffle a line.

To boldly go out of the airlock, astronauts need to look the part. Donning a spacesuit protects astronauts from the dangerous conditions just beyond our atmosphere. The outer layer of NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit is built tough from a blend of three fabrics. One fabric is the same stuff used in bulletproof vests. It […]

One of our readers requested an article about time keeping devices, and it’s a great time for the topic. Scientists set a new record in clock precision early this year with an atomic clock that ‘ticks’ 430 trillion times in a single second. Vibrations on your wrist Most wristwatches and wall clocks today use a […]

Written by Sarah Kellett Little penguins spend their days finding food at sea. With the help of location-tracking devices, researchers have found out that the smallest species of penguin tends to travel the sea in groups, and may dive at the same time while hunting fish.

Written by Sarah Kellett The largest outbreak of Ebola ever recorded is happening in West Africa. Since February this year, more than 1000 people have been killed by the Ebola virus. Last week, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.