Nanomedicine is maturing

Nanomedicine is maturing

The ability to re-engineer matter — living and non-living — at the atomic level is a key industrial story of the coming decade. The world of genes, proteins (3-100 nm), bacteria, viruses, telomeres, mitochondria (1-100 microns) and animal cells (mm) will...
DNA and the Future of Computing

DNA and the Future of Computing

The machine itself doesn’t look very impressive. In fact, it looks more like a home experiment…something you might use to distil your own gin or vodka. There are a few working parts: some glass bottles…some chemicals…a few sequencing devices. In total it cost...
A Chronic Shortage of Bandwidth

A Chronic Shortage of Bandwidth

Remember the dial-up internet and the finger tapping timpani it yielded? Well, maybe a new era of the ‘world wide wait’ looms. Global internet traffic is growing by at least 25% a year — far outstripping the current growth in bandwidth with mobile traffic growing at...
That Voice in Your Head

That Voice in Your Head

An experiment. Hold out your right arm and then slowly flex your wrist. Which comes first – the thought to flex your wrist, or the action itself? In the 1980s, an experiment by the neurologist Benjamin Libet raised some disturbing questions about the extent to which...
Is Facebook a Sin Stock?

Is Facebook a Sin Stock?

Those who want to strictly regulate Facebook or indeed Google or Amazon are baying at the moon. Take the example of Facebook. Yesterday we had the spectacle of Zuckerberg donning sackcloth and ashes before Congress. But this Facebook scandal will be a nine day...