science

An increasing number of high-calibre researchers are being accused of treason in today’s Russia, mostly without official charges, landing behind bars for decades. And the main beneficiary of their imprisonment is the Federal Security Service (FSB), which deprives them not only of their freedom and ability to work, but...

Engineers re-created one of Leonardo’s experiments with a modern apparatus and found he produced a value for the gravitational constant, G, to around 97 percent accuracy. What makes this finding even more astonishing is that Leonardo achieved this without a means of accurate timekeeping and without the benefit of calculus,...

Ideas can come from all sorts of places, and inspiration can hit in a flash—think of Archimedes supposedly yelling “Eureka! Eureka!” in the bath when he realized that irregular items could be accurately measured through water displacement. But sometimes, it’s fiction, not reality, that provides the spark of inspiration....

Paper: “Though we see relatively equal public interest in male and female politicians, … this interest may not be equally professional and reverent; female politicians are much more likely to be referenced using their first name and described in relation to their body, clothing and family than male politicians. Finally, we...