2 March 2021
Sealed letters folded in intricate patterns have gone unread for more than 300 years, but now people have been able to tease out their contents with a combination of X-ray imaging and unfolding algorithms
12 February 2020
This week, hide behind the sofa from mind-altering plants, listen and learn from technologies past and find out how the world is underpinned by numbers
6 November 2019
From the accidental creation of Silly Putty to an abandoned attempt to build a universal language, University College London's latest exhibition, Flop, offers new ways to look at failure
4 September 2019
The Science Museum's newest gallery reveals how innovative Elizabethan devices helped London become a global centre for science
21 August 2019
With automation threatening jobs, US president Richard Nixon proposed a universal minimum income - an idea that only recently has come back in vogue
7 August 2019
20 years ago, genetically engineered rice with its increased nutritional content seemed a sure-fire win – but that reckoned without implacable critics
1 May 2019
One of the great extras of playing games like Assassin's Creed is their sense of historical time and place, even letting us play at translating ancient hieroglyphics
18 December 2018
Enjoyed our antique inventions quiz? Find out more about what these strange devices were actually made for.
18 December 2018
Can you tell a guillotine calibrator from a combustion-powered clock? A Victorian roller skate from a laser roulette wheel? Take our antiques quiz to find out
9 November 2018
A poignant archive of first world war film has been brilliantly restored for Peter Jackson's powerful documentary released for the centenary commemorations
