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The flap of a butterfly’s wings: why autumn is not a good time to predict if El Niño is coming
Shutterstock Nandini Ramesh, CSIRO Remember the butterfly effect? It was a popular summary of chaos theory suggesting a…
Cyclone Freddy was the most energetic storm on record. Is it a harbinger of things to come?
NOAA / AP Thomas Mortlock, UNSW Sydney On February 4, a storm off the north-west coast of Australia…
How did birds survive while dinosaurs went extinct?
It wasn’t flying that gave birds the advantage. Corey Ford/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images Chris Lituma, West Virginia…
Four ways that fossils are part of everyday life
The building blocks of the Giza pyramids contain trillions of fossilised remains of an ocean-dwelling organism called foraminifera.…
Imagination makes us human – this unique ability to envision what doesn’t exist has a long evolutionary history
Your brain can imagine things that haven’t happened or that don’t even exist. agsandrew/iStock via Getty Images Plus…
How amateur scientists are still helping make important discoveries
pexels/ mart production, CC BY-SA Mark Lorch, University of Hull What images does science conjure up in your…
How fish evolved to walk – and in one case, turned into humans
3D rendering of the tiktaalik, an extinct walking fish. Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock Chris Organ, University of Reading When you…
When should we worry about bird flu making us sick? When we see human-to-human transmission – and there’s no evidence of that yet
Ash Porter, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Michelle Wille, University of Sydney Bird flu…
Can eating poppy seeds affect drug test results? An addiction and pain medicine specialist explains
Eating culinary poppy seeds won’t get you high, but they could lead to a failed drug test. Linda…
Billions have been sunk into virtual reality. To make it worth it, the industry needs to grow beyond its walled gardens
While VR is still used primarily as a gaming device, it has the potential to move beyond the…