According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more women are affected by depression than men. This pattern is seen in countries around the world, including the United States.
Graphene isn’t the only Lego in the materials-science toy box
You may have heard of graphene, a sheet of pure carbon, one atom thick, that’s all the rage in materials-science circles, and getting plenty of media hype as well. Reports have trumpeted graphene as an ultra-thin, super-strong, super-conductive, super-flexible material. You could be excused for thinking it might even save all of humanity from certain doom.
Is there life through the looking-glass? The riddle of life’s single-handedness
From dark gravity to phantom energy: what’s driving the expansion of the universe?
Explainer: what is the Great Attractor and its pull on our galaxy?
Around four decades ago, astronomers became aware that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was moving through space at a much faster rate than expected. At 2.2-million kilometres an hour, the speed of the Milky Way through the Cosmos is 2,500 times faster than a cruising airliner; 55 times more than the escape velocity from Earth; and a factor of two greater than even the galaxy’s own escape velocity! But where this motion comes from is a mystery.
Asteroids most likely delivered water to the moon – here’s how we cracked it
One of the moon’s greatest mysteries has long been whether it has any water. During the Apollo era in 1960s and 70s, scientists were convinced it was dry and dusty – estimating there was less than one part in a billion water. However, over the last decade, analyses of lunar samples have revealed that there is a considerable amount of water inside the moon – up to several hundred parts per million – and that it’s been there since the satellite was very young.
How to tell the world you’ve discovered an alien civilization
Want to lose weight? Train the brain, not the body
Despite massive government, medical and individual efforts to win the war on obesity, 71 percent of Americans are overweight. The average adult is 24 pounds heavier today than in 1960. Our growing girth adds some US$200 billion per year to our health care expenditure, amounting to a severe health crisis.
Australia’s volcanic history is a lot more recent than you think
Solar storms could solve longstanding paradox of how life on Earth arose
It was only a matter of 700m years or so after Earth formed and its surface cooled and solidified that life began to flourish on Earth. All studies suggest that life requires water – and we know from rocks on Earth that the climate in this distant past was sufficiently warm for liquid water to be present. But therein lies a mystery.
How events in Panama created the modern world (millions of years ago)
How the hidden mathematics of living cells could help us decipher the brain
Given how much they can actually do, computers have a surprisingly simple basis. Indeed, the logic they use has worked so well that we have even started to think of them as analogous to the human brain. Current computers basically use two basic values – 0 (false) and 1 (true) – and apply simple operations like “and”, “or” and “not” to compute with them. These operations can be combined and scaled up to represent virtually any computation.
What is love? Here’s the science…
Poets write about it, singers sing about it. We've all felt it at some time in our lives. There is even an entire industry that has been created around finding it, expressing it and maintaining it. But what is Love? What is really going on in our minds when we ''fall head over heels?'' Here's the science of it.
What a tiny micrometeorite from the Pilbara can tell us about the ancient sky
The philosophy of chemistry … and what it can tell us about life, the universe and everything
Philosophy asks some fundamental and probing questions of itself. What is it? Why do we do it? What can it achieve? As a starting point, the word “philosophy” comes from the Greek words meaning a love of wisdom. And anyone who does it is trying to make sense of the world around them. In that way, philosophers are a bit like scientists.
How to beat the casino – legally
Explainer: how dangerous is turbulence… and can it bring down a plane?
Vanadium: the ‘beautiful metal’ that stores energy
Do you even lift? Why lifting weights is more important for your health than you think
Regular participation in muscle strengthening activity such as weight or resistance training has many health benefits. However, this mode of exercise has been largely overlooked in Australian health promotion. Our recent research shows a large majority of Australians do not engage in muscle strengthening activity.
