A bit of numeracy can take the heat out of the asylum debate
Fear of "innumerate and illiterate" asylum seekers arriving in Australia is immigration minister Peter Dutton's latest broadside in the ongoing to-and-fro over asylum seeker policy.
Fear of "innumerate and illiterate" asylum seekers arriving in Australia is immigration minister Peter Dutton's latest broadside in the ongoing to-and-fro over asylum seeker policy.
Social Sciences
May 18, 2016
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9
Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? This question—summed up in the famous Drake equation—has for a half-century been one of the most intractable and uncertain in science.
Astronomy
Apr 28, 2016
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Symbols don't always have to be part of the equation to understand math, according to cognitive neuroscientist Elizabeth Brannon.
Plants & Animals
Apr 28, 2016
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205
Is there life on other planets, somewhere in this enormous universe? That's probably the most compelling question we can ask. A lot of space science and space missions are pointed directly at that question.
Astronomy
Apr 27, 2016
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When new life develops, a tiny ball of initially identical cells has to form the different body parts of the mature organism. Sixty years ago, Alan Turing proposed that this body patterning is achieved by two types of signaling ...
Biotechnology
Apr 26, 2016
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10
The number 2016 divided by 4 equals 504, exactly – with no remainder, which makes the year 2016, like the upcoming years 2020, 2024 and 2028 (and beyond), a leap year. We will get an "extra" day, February 29.
Space Exploration
Feb 26, 2016
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43
Humans have been riding bicycle-like machines for close to 200 years, beginning with the Draisine or "velocipede" in 1817.
Engineering
Feb 25, 2016
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One may think that the extreme north of Europe is low in insect life, except for the notorious blood-sucking flies. However, while it is a generally accepted truth that both plant and animal species' count is higher the closer ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 19, 2016
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34
The back of a tiger could have been a blank canvas. Instead, nature painted the big cat with parallel stripes, evenly spaced and perpendicular to the spine. Scientists don't know exactly how stripes develop, but since the ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 23, 2015
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45
Twenty-two years after it was first proposed, mathematicians from Massey University, New Zealand, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway and La Trobe University, Australia have demonstrated why an unconventional ...
Mathematics
Dec 17, 2015
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12