"The Universe may be a stranger place than we imagined because of new evidence that appears to show the very laws of physics have changed since the cosmos was young. Analysis of the light coming from distant quasars suggests that a fundamental physical constant may have been increasing slightly over the past six billion years...."

"The universe has a problem. The math that describes gravity and the structure of spacetime – general relativity – conflicts with the math that describes the interactions of subatomic particles – quantum mechanics. For the past two decades, the dominant approach to unifying the two has been string theory, which basically says that the universe is made of infinitesimally small, vibrating filaments of energy moving through multiple dimensions. It's wacky stuff, but no weirder than a lot of other science. Yet in his ne..."

"Plato, the great Greek philosopher, wrote a series of `Dialogues' which summarized many of the things which he had learned from his teacher, who was the philosopher Socrates. One of the most famous of these Dialogues is the `Allegory of the Cave'. In this allegory, people are chained in a cave so that they can only see the shadows which are cast on the walls of the cave by a fire. To these people, the shadows represent the totality of their existence - it is impossible for them to imagine a reality which consists o..."

"Half of the world's human population is infected with Toxoplasma, parasites in the body—and the brain. Remember that. Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite found in the guts of cats; it sheds eggs that are picked up by rats and other animals that are eaten by cats. Toxoplasma forms cysts in the bodies of the intermediate rat hosts, including in the brain. Since cats don't want to eat dead, decaying prey, Toxoplasma takes the evolutionarily sound course of being a "good" parasite, leaving the rats perfectly h..."

"cientists, wringing their hands over the identity of the famed "hobbit" fossil, have found a new clue in the wrist. Since the discovery of the bones in Indonesia in 2003, researchers have wrangled over whether the find was an ancient human ancestor or simply a modern human suffering from a genetic disorder...."

"Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science". The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed. In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible..."

"In the field of astrobiology, few people have had a bigger influence than Frank Drake. In 1960, he conducted the first radio Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He formulated the "Drake Equation," which set the standard for the search for alien life in our galaxy, providing scientific rigor to a field of inquiry that previously had been derided as pure science fiction...."