We can only choose the battles that will make a difference.

For the last half a century or so, Malthusian fears have goaded governments, democratic and authoritarian alike, to forge an impressive array of...

In the last few years, we have seen a few IT barons betting their millions on ideas considered quixotic by mainstream scientists. First, there was the...

You think it’s all right to eat food off the floor? Or are you one of those whose modern fear of all vermin renders the idea sickening? For a long...

If you are depressed, you could either take a pill that tweaks the gray matter to induce a sense of euphoria, or you could opt for the “talking cure”...

On July 29, Neil deGrasse Tyson, a popular astrophysicist, sent out this controversial tweet: “Earth needs a virtual country: rationalia, with a...

For many mathematicians, what they do is nothing short of creating beauty out of numbers, shapes, and forms. In the much-quoted words of G H Hardy,...

When politics disappoints, technology walks in. So when some scientists warned that the proposed emission cuts under the Paris climate deal would fall...

The blurring of sex is one of the enduring dogmas of modern medicine. And this reduction is biased in favour of men, the default sex—what is medically...

So now even bread, the proverbial stuff of life, can imperil health. The recent revelation by the Centre for Science and Environment that most branded...

Once upon a time, pirates skulked on the high seas to ambush riches-laden ships. Their modern-day mutants prowl a different kind of sea, the sea of...

But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.” This charming...