Earth Satellites could keep an eye out for floods Another week, another serious flood – monsoonal rains in Sri Lanka have displaced around 320,000 people in recent days. The deluge comes in the wake of other floods in Brazil , the Philippines and Australia , all since the turn of the year. And as La Niña settles in for the decade, floods are expected … News
Life The man who gets into the minds of psychopaths Kent Kiehl delves into the minds of psychopaths When Kent Kiehl visits some of the most dangerous prisoners in US jails, he doesn't just go to talk. He's there to find out what's different about the way their brains work. He tells Samantha Murphy what insights this has revealed about the origins of psychopathic behaviour … Opinion
Your kitchen sink, and 16 other wonders of the cosmos Death trap Follow Roger as he time-travels, wages biological warfare and finds the secret of galaxy clusters in his soup – all in a typical Monday Cosmic voyager 6.45am I'm fast asleep, lying motionless in bed. Or am I? In reality, I am voyaging through the cosmos at a tremendous speed. My home world rotates … Features
Telempathy: A future of socially networked neurons World Wide Mind by Michael Chorost argues that we will soon be able to wire our brains directly to one another. But would you want to? IMAGINE a world in which there is no need to express your thoughts or emotions in words, where you can let others experience your brain states directly. This … CultureLab
Enigma Number 1634 Symphonic buttons I was playing with my touch-tone phone to see whether I could play tunes, and I had just discovered that I could make a reasonable approximation to the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony by keying 8883 2221 (using a rhythm similar to the Morse code for "v v": • • • – … Regulars
Feedback: Health benefits of radioactive peanuts Health benefits of radioactive peanuts WHICH century produced this, we wondered: "Merano, a pretty little town in South Tyrol, became a health resort thanks to its curative mountain air, mild climate and thermal baths... The waters contain radon and are claimed to cure circulatory problems." Hang on – radon? The radioactive noble gas? Our first … Regulars