Science and Technology

A costly failure 21 October 2004

D’oh!
Why the Genesis probe crashed

Private space exploration 7 October 2004

SpaceShipWon!
The X-Prize is claimed

Winners! 7 October 2004

Smells like team spirit
The 2004 Novel prizes in the sciences

Social Networks 30 September 2004

Circles of friends
What maths tells us about us.

Dodging bullets… 30 September 2004

Far away, so close
A large asteroid sweeps by the Earth. Where are the others?

Foreign atmospheres 23 September 2004

Valuable vapours
How methane on Mars is distributed.

Looking for planets around distant stars 23 September 2004

In search of the Earth Mark II
Terrestrial exoplanets will likely be found soon.

Extreme Weather 16 September 2004

Shelter from the storm
What hurricane scientists study when they study hurricanes

Anatomy of a search engine 16 September 2004

How Google works
A brief history of the world’s most revolutionary search engine. Plus, an interview with me about that brief history.

Medical Testing 9 September 2004

Sounds of silence
Drug companies may soon be forced to report the results of all clinical trials.

Telescopes in orbit 28 August 2004

X-ray specs
A retrospective on NASA’s Great Observatories, Compton, and Spitzer.

Understanding gravity 21 August 2004

An invisible hand
A gravitational mystery affecting pendulums and satellites–could General Relativity be wrong?

Propulsion 12 August 2004

The heat is on.
A more efficient spacecraft engine.

Not so secret codes 1 July 2004

Not the usual channels
An overview of coding theory

Quantum oddities 17 June 2004

In the twinkling of an ion
Two groups have succeeded in teleporting quantum states.

Simon diga 17 June 2004

Simon says
Bilingualism may help protect the mind in old age.

Needles in haystacks 10 June 2004

A golden vein
The future of data mining

Profile: Dennis Ritchie, Unix pioneer 10 June 2004

Unix’s founding fathers
A profile of Dennis Ritchie and his colleaugues who first developed C, the programming language, and Unix.

Am I bluffing? 10 June 2004

A chip and a chair
Why poker is a skillfull game

Without resistance 3 June 2004

Full steam ahead
What superconductors can do