Space 'Rings of fire' erupt from sun in NASA probe's first videos Video: New solar images A solar prominence (loop) erupts from the surface of the sun on 30 March in this false-colour image taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Reds are relatively cool, at about 60,000 °C, while blues and greens are at more than 1 million °C A prominence eruption on the sun: an arc … News
Ernst Fehr: How I found what's wrong with economics From wrestler to economist Austrian economist Ernst Fehr tells Mark Buchanan why global economics could benefit from a touch of compassion and why a good wrestler never gives up FROM outside economist Ernst Fehr's office at the University of Zurich in Switzerland you would have no idea that he had been tipped to win a … Opinion
Physics Electoral dysfunction: Why democracy is always unfair IN AN ideal world, elections should be two things: free and fair. Every adult, with a few sensible exceptions, should be able to vote for a candidate of their choice, and each single vote should be worth the same. Ensuring a free vote is a matter for the law. Making elections fair is more a … Features
Enigma Number 1593 Three squares On three identical square cards I wrote 3 × 3 magic squares (where the sums of each row, column and major diagonal are equal) using the numbers 1 to 9 on the first, 10 to 18 on the second and 19 to 27 on the third. I formed them into a sandwich in … Regulars
Towards a universal crackpot standard FRUITLOOPERY is, Feedback has proposed, most readily detected by the uncalled-for use of the word "quantum" (10 June 2006 et seq). Don Jewett proposes a more subtle detector that can spot fractional fruitloopery, no less. "For example," he writes, "the first five letters of 'quantitative easing' are the first five letters of 'quantum', giving a … Regulars