Perfect chips

Ultra-precise chip-scale sensor detects unprecedentedly small changes in environmental conditions at the nanoscale

Dangerous potatoes

Are potatoes now a cancer risk? Here’s what you need to know

Hot but bothered?

World temperatures hit new high in 2016 for third year in a row

Look before you leap

450nm, too big a leap

Do you give a damn?

Frankly, we do give a damn

Moore's law saviours?

EUV lithography and the use of cobalt in interconnect techniques are highlighted as innovations that might maintain Moore’s Law.

The 2 biggies

Facebook and Instagram are the most used social media platforms.

Do you own a smartphone?

95% of Americans own a cellphone of some kind. 77% own a smartphone with 92% of adults in the age range 18-29 owning a smartphone.

The price for faking data

A physicist formerly based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for faking data. He has also been ordered to pay back $3,317,893 to the government.

Because we don’t need it

The 2016 technological graveyard is fairly full. MIT have produced their list of star technology failures for 2016. These include Volkswagen’s “defeat device” (a rather expensive few lines of software code), genetically engineered plants that luminesce (still in the dark) and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (far too hot a product).

Because we need it?

Shoshana Zuboff once said that ‘technology makes the world a new place’. CES2017 showcased the consumer electronic industry’s products aimed at that new place. Highlights included 2.57 mm thin room sized OLED TVs; smart and Alexa compatible home appliances and holographic head-up displays for cars. Some of the exhibits that might not make it into your household include vacuum shoes and a padded mouthpiece but are you really early adopters?

Scientists are pretty average people

People and personalities vary, but generally I have always considered scientists to be a fairly average cross section of the human race. So is it true that narcissism is a problem in science? EPFL’s Bruno Lemaitre thinks that science is falling victim to a crisis of narcissism, where reaching the top of the scientific hierarchy increasingly depends on a glittering media profile, publishing in trophy journals and cultivating a network of academic ‘frenemies’ who are treated as close allies until they become obstacles in the path to academic glory. No stranger to controversy he considers in part that scientists can be motivated by a need for attention and authority as well as curiosity about the natural world.

Greek mythology relates that non-scientist Narcissus was punished by Nemesis - but admittedly, only after he had done some damage.