Invasion of the Robot Umpires
A few years ago, Fred DeJesus from Brooklyn, New York became the first umpire in a minor league baseball game to use something called the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), often referred to as the ‘robo-umpire’. Instead of making any judgments himself about a strike”, DeJesus had decisions fed to him through an earpiece, connected to […]
Beyond the blue horizon
Ancient voyagers who settled the far-flung islands of the Pacific Ocean An important archaeological discovery on the island of Efate in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has revealed traces of an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of today’s Polynesians. The site came to light only by chance. An agricultural worker, digging in the grounds […]
Museums of fine art and their public
The fact that people go to the Louvre museum in Paris to see the original painting Mona Lisa when they can see a reproduction anywhere leads us to question some assumptions about the role of museums of fine art in today’s world One of the most famous works of art in the world is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona […]
[IELTS Reading] – ‘This Marvellous Invention’
A Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions -the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread – may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and […]
Research using twins
To biomedical researchers all over the world, twins offer a precious opportunity to untangle the influence of genes and the environment – of nature and nurture. Because identical twins come from a single fertilized egg that splits into two, they share virtually the same genetic code. Any differences between them -one twin having younger looking […]
Neuroaesthetics
An emerging discipline called neuroaesthetics is seeking to bring scientific objectivity to the study of art, and has already given us a better understanding of many masterpieces. The blurred imagery of Impressionist paintings seems to stimulate the brain’s amygdala, for instance. Since the amygdala plays a crucial role in our feelings, that finding might explain […]
[IELTS Reading] – Bring back the big cats
It’s time to start returning vanished native animals to Britain, says John Vesty There is a poem, written around 598 AD, which describes hunting a mystery animal called a llewyn. But what was it? Nothing seemed to fit, until 2006, when an animal bone, dating from around the same period, was found in the Kinsey Cave in […]
[IELTS Reading] – Music and the emotions
Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer considers the emotional power of music Why does music make us feel? One the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas. And yet, even though music says little, it still manages to touch us deeply. When listening to our favourite songs, our body betrays […]
[IELTS Reading] – Book Review
The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being – By William Davies – ‘Happiness is the ultimate goal because it is self-evidently good. If we are asked why happiness matters we can give no further external reason. It just obviously does matter.’ This pronouncement by Richard Layard, an economist and advocate […]
[IELTS Reading] – Environmental practices of big businesses
The environmental practices of big businesses are shaped by a fundamental fact that for many of us offend our sense of justice. Depending on the circumstances, a business may maximize the amount of money it makes, at least in the short term, by damaging the environment and hurting people. That is still the case today […]
[IELTS Reading] – Why fairy tales are really scary tales
Some people think that fairy tales are just stories to amuse children, but their universal and enduring appeal may be due to more serious reasons People of every culture tell each other fairy tales but the same story often takes a variety of forms in different parts of the world. In the story of Little Red […]
[IELTS Reading] – Having a laugh
The findings of psychological scientists reveal the importance of humour Humans start developing a sense of humour as early as six weeks old, when babies begin to laugh and smile in response to stimuli. Laughter is universal across all human cultures and even exists in some form in rats, chimps, and bonobos. Like other human […]
Changes in reading habits
What are the implications of the way we read today? Look around on your next plane trip. The iPad is the new pacifier for babies and toddlers. Younger school-aged children read stories on smartphones; older kids don’t read at all, but hunch over video games. Parents and other passengers read on tablets or skim a […]
How to make wise decisions
Across cultures, wisdom has been considered one of the most revered human qualities. Although the truly wise may seem few and far between, empirical research examining wisdom suggests that it isn’t an exceptional trait possessed by a small handful of bearded philosophers after all – in fact, the latest studies suggest that most of us […]
[IELTS Reading] – I contain multitudes
Wendy Moore reviews Ed Yong’s book about microbes Microbes, most of them bacteria, have populated this planet since long before animal life developed and they will outlive us. Invisible to the naked eye, they are ubiquitous. They inhabit the soil, air, rocks and water and are present within every form of life, from seaweed and […]
[IELTS Reading] – The future of work
According to a leading business consultancy, 3-14% of the global workforce will need to switch to a different occupation within the next 10-15 years, and all workers will need to adapt as their occupations evolve alongside increasingly capable machines. Automation – or ‘embodied artificial intelligence’ (AI) – is one aspect of the disruptive effects of […]
Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers
Katharine L. Shester reviews a book by Jason Barr about the development of New York City In Building the Skyline, Jason Barr takes the reader through a detailed history of New York City. The book combines geology, history, economics, and a lot of data to explain why business clusters developed where they did and how the […]
Insight or evolution?
Two scientists consider the origins of discoveries and other innovative behavior Scientific discovery is popularly believed to result from the sheer genius of such intellectual stars as naturalist Charles Darwin and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. Our view of such unique contributions to science often disregards the person’s prior experience and the efforts of their lesser-known […]
To catch a king
Anna Keay reviews Charles Spencer’s book about the hunt for King Charles II during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century Charles Spencer’s latest book, To Catch a King, tells us the story of the hunt for King Charles II in the six weeks after his resounding defeat at the Battle of Worcester in September […]
Alfred Wegener: science, exploration and the theory of continental drift
by Mott T Greene Introduction This is a book about the life and scientific work of Alfred Wegener, whose reputation today rests with his theory of continental displacements, better known as ‘continental drift’. Wegener proposed this theory in 1912 and developed it extensively for nearly 20 years. His book on the subject, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, […]
