Health New techniques may soon make designer babies a reality – are we ready? IT IS hard to think of an area of science more controversial than the genetics of intelligence. Now it is about to get exponentially more contentious. For a long time, DNA testing couldn't tell us anything useful about someone's IQ or any other traits affected by multiple genes, such as diabetes or cancer risk. But … News
Humans Ancient tribes of Scotland learned to write after contact with Romans Roman-inspired writing? Scottish fisherman pulled up a rare catch near Aberdeen earlier this year: a large stone etched with geometric markings. It was a Pictish symbol stone , with a meaning and age as enigmatic as the people who made it. Now it seems that the Picts began carving their symbols much earlier than we … News
Health Double the risk of death! The problem with headline health statistics How should scientists and journalists report risk? The way in which a statistic is presented can entirely change how alarming it sounds. And too often, both newspapers and scientific journals choose the most alarming, but least informative, way. For instance, according to a widely reported study published in the BMJ this month, if you father … News
Physics Inside the hunt for the universe's missing ingredient – dark matter Research engineer Nick Force works on ADMX's largest magnet, which produces a magnetic field 150,000 times stronger than Earth's NO, THIS isn't a boiler room. This humble-looking machine in Seattle is searching for the universe's missing ingredient: dark matter. Dark matter is thought to account for 85 per cent of all the matter in the … Regulars
Physics Einstein was wrong: Why 'normal' physics can't explain reality The most ambitious experiments yet show that the quantum weirdness Einstein famously hated rules the roost – not just here, but across the entire universe Features
Earth Timefulness review – our impulsive and pugnacious age needs geology If you want to save Earth, argues a new book, quit sitting around in the present hoping for the best and learn to think really long term, like a geologist Culture
Sponsored How lab-on-a-chip technology is turning smartphones into food sensors A lab-on-a-chip that fits inside a smartphone is set to change our relationship with food and the chemicals we use to make it basf
Feedback: Is 'Oumuamua an alien solar sail or interstellar mozzarella? Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Regulars