Biodegradation Cigarette butts are the forgotten plastic pollution – and they could be killing our plantsThe Conversation UK - Dannielle Green It’s amazing how quickly people have ditched plastic straws thanks to campaigns to discourage us from using such “pointless plastic”. Yet rarely do …
Play buttonApollo Missions How geological maps made the Apollo moon landings worthwhileThe Conversation UK - David Rothery I still remember a cartoon in a newspaper in July 1969, just before the first Apollo moon landing. It showed the ground crew reminding the astronauts …
Moon Landing Apollo 11 made us believe we could do anything – the truth is it could hasten our downfallThe Conversation UK - Eric Olson The Apollo project gave us the astonishing spectacle of a blue marble rising over the sterile surface of the moon. Of course, the moon was already …
Internet The internet is surprisingly fragile, crashes thousands of times a year, and no one is making it strongerThe Conversation UK - Vasileios Giotsas How could a small internet service provider (ISP) in Pennsylvania cause millions of websites worldwide to go offline? That’s what happened on June …
Radiation Space radiation: the Apollo crews were extremely luckyThe Conversation UK - Jim Wild As the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first moon landing approaches, the conspiracy theories that claim the Apollo missions were a hoax refuse to …
Radiation Space radiation: the Apollo crews were extremely lucky – future astronauts may not beThe Conversation UK - Jim Wild As the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first moon landing approaches, the conspiracy theories that claim the Apollo missions were a hoax refuse to …
SpaceX To the moon and beyond 3: The new space race and what winning it looks likeThe Conversation UK - Martin Archer and Miriam Frankel From Algeria to Vietnam, there are 72 countries with some sort of space programme. And the new space race involves a number of private companies too, …
Play buttonBiological Species What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mysteryThe Conversation UK - Henry Taylor A koala bear isn’t actually a bear, it’s a marsupial. Whales aren’t fish, they’re mammals. Tomatoes aren’t vegetables, they’re fruit. Almost nothing …
Magnetism A layer of 'aerogel' could make Mars habitable and even enable life to develop there – but here's why we should waitThe Conversation UK - Andrew Coates Transforming the red planet to support life has long been a dream of science fiction. Mars is now too cold to support life. Its atmosphere is also …
Apps How tech firms make us feel like we own their apps – and how that benefits themThe Conversation UK - Melody Zou Possessions are going out of fashion. An endless stream of media reports claim millennials – that amorphous mass of people born in the 1980s and …
Blockchain Four ways blockchain could make the internet safer, fairer and more creativeThe Conversation UK - Hitesh Tewari The internet is unique in that it has no central control, administration or authority. It has given everyone with access to it a platform to express …
Cyberbullying Anonymous apps risk fuelling cyberbullying but they also fill a vital roleThe Conversation UK - Killian O'Leary and Stephen Murphy When the anonymous social media app YOLO was launched in May 2019, it topped the iTunes downloads chart after just one week, despite the lack of a …
Joy Division Joy Division: 40 years on from 'Unknown Pleasures', astronomers have revisited the pulsar from the iconic album coverThe Conversation UK - Patrick Weltevrede Forty years ago, the English rock band Joy Division released their debut studio album “Unknown Pleasures”. The front cover doesn’t feature any words, …
Heart Rates Our brain-computer interfacing technology uses music to make people happyThe Conversation UK - Ian Daly and Eduardo R. Miranda and Slawomir Nasuto Whether it’s the music that was playing on the radio when you met your partner or the first song your baby daughter smiled to, for many of us, music …
Data Protection BA's record fine could help make the public take data security more seriouslyThe Conversation UK - John McAlaney British Airways (BA) has received a record fine of £183m after details of around 500,000 of its customers were stolen in a data breach in summer …
Humanity Oldest human skull outside Africa identified as 210,000 years oldThe Conversation UK - Anthony Sinclair A 210,000-year-old human skull could provide new evidence that our species left Africa much earlier than previously thought. A new study published in …
Moon Moon landings footage would have been impossible to fake – a film expert explains whyThe Conversation UK - Howard Berry It’s been half a century since the magnificent Apollo 11 moon landing, yet many people still don’t believe it actually happened. Conspiracy theories …
Moon Landing To the moon and beyond 2: how humanity reacted to the moon landing and why it led to conspiracy theoriesThe Conversation UK - Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer In the second episode of The Conversation’s To the moon and beyond podcast series, we take a look at the impact going to the moon had on humanity – …
Criminology Exhibit A and other true crime shows can fuel misconceptions about forensic scienceThe Conversation UK - Graham Williams Forensic science is under attack. A string of recent collapsed trials and quashed convictions that relied on forensic evidence have led some experts …
Coal China wrestles with insecure gas supplies but stays strong on longer-term plan for renewablesThe Conversation UK - Janet Xuanli Liao As the world’s largest CO₂ emitter and second largest economy, China’s climate policy has faced intense scrutiny over the past decade. Despite a …
Armyworms are devastating Asia's crops, but we have a plan to save themThe Conversation UK - Toby Bruce A very hungry caterpillar is rampaging through crops across the world, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The fall armyworm, also known as …
Product Recalls Scientists may soon be able to predict your memories – here's howThe Conversation UK - Deborah Talmi Do you remember your first kiss? What about your grandma dying? Chances are you do, and that’s because emotional memories are at the core of our …
Asteroids Five reasons future space travel should explore asteroidsThe Conversation UK - Dimitri Veras and James Blake On the same day that the Earth survived an expected near-miss with asteroid 367943 Duende, Russian dashcams unexpectedly captured footage of a …
Titan (Moon) Flying on Saturn’s moon Titan: what we could discover with NASA's new Dragonfly missionThe Conversation UK - Christian Schroeder Flying on other worlds is the next leap in the exploration of our solar system. The Mars Helicopter will piggyback on the NASA Mars 2020 rover …
Methane Blue 'noctilucent' clouds are appearing further south than ever seen before – and pollution may be a causeThe Conversation UK - Jon Perrett Cloud watchers have recently been given record-breaking glimpses of the rarest clouds in the skies. Stunning rippled blue clouds have been forming in …
NASA Four surprising technological innovations that came out of the Apollo moon landingsThe Conversation UK - Daniel Brown NASA’s Apollo programme was one of the most challenging technological achievements in the 20th century. Beyond the space race and exploration, it …
Moon Lunar and solar eclipses make animals do strange thingsThe Conversation UK - Steve Portugal For most animals, the structure of their day – and indeed their year – depends on the light-dark cycle. These regular and rhythmic cycles in the …
Moon Anthill presents: To the moon and beyond 1 – What we learned from landing on the moonThe Conversation UK - Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer Welcome to the first episode of To the moon and beyond, a brand new global podcast series from The Conversation marking 50 years since the first moon …
Moon To the moon and beyond 1: What we learned from landing on the moon and why we stopped goingThe Conversation UK - Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer Welcome to the first episode of To the moon and beyond, a brand new global podcast series from The Conversation marking 50 years since the first moon …
