Category: All features
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Think yourself healthy
The vagus nerve, which connects the brain to various organs, plays an essential role in the mind-body relationship. Can you train it to make you happy?
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The invisible killers
With its horrible symptoms and 80% mortality rate, Ebola fever is especially frightening. The cases in Spain and the U.S. served as a reminder that procedures for strict disinfection, while simple on paper, are less so in practise. Even the Western health system cannot entirely protect us from this virus.
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Beating the Superbugs
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise, but the pipeline for new drugs is drying up. Researchers are developing new strategies to avoid a resurgence of illnesses that once seemed easy to cure.
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The content hunter
Martin Stiksel, founder of Last.fm, is back with an even more ambitious project: to organise the entire web according to each user’s behaviour.
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Rise of the geek lawyers
How science fiction can inform a generally staid profession about the legal issues of the future.
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“The field has finally reached scientific maturity”
Happiness can be understood objectively, says pioneer researcher Ruut Veenhoven.
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Happy? Your smartphone will know
New technologies and citizen science offer innovative ways to track and quantify emotions. They are uncovering new ingredients in the recipe for happiness.
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New ways of fighting bacteria
Four novel approaches to keep killers in check.
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“It reminds me of papyrus”
The worst design sins to avoid, according to usability guru Jakob Nielsen.
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Attack of the clones
Annoying to some but completely normal to others, copying has become an established business model in the world of start-ups and smartphone apps.
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Take it, use it, change it, create
You no longer need to be an electronics wizard to build sophisticated devices. “Makers” like the four profiled on these pages are unleashing their creativity thanks to Raspberry Pi and Arduino boards.
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Biohackers who want to change the world
The biohacking movement, which appeared in the U.S. in the late 2000s, has now spread to Europe.
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Bzzzz… here come the kamikaze mosquitoes
In an effort to combat dengue fever, Brazil has authorised the dissemination of a transgenic insect. Now the question is: will the critters do their job?
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Privacy, after Snowden
People are increasingly concerned about the safety of personal data. The market is responding with new encryption products that are easy to use.
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The audiophile
Four Danes have created award-winning upmarket headphones. One of them describes the challenges of fusing design and audio engineering.
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A world of invisible colours
Chemical cameras reveal a world that is invisible to the human eye. Smaller and cheaper devices are now finding uses from agriculture to cancer diagnostics.
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“You have to be aggressive online”
Crowdfunding demands a well-planned communication strategy, explains Daniela Castrataro, co-founder of the Future of Crowdfunding conference.
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Microscopy: Going beyond the limits of light
Super-resolution techniques have pushed back the limits of optics, becoming an essential tool in the life sciences.
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Power from thin air
Mobile devices need energy – lots of it. Instead of focussing only on improving battery performance, some scientists are looking at the ambient energy that is all around us.
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The other wonder gas
By being the first to extract methane hydrates last year, Japan has launched a new global race.