Why do people believe in COVID conspiracies? Sadly, our brains are wired for collective delusions, but simple tools can combat these frailties. — VISITING STONEHENGE is a magical experience: you can’t help but be influenced by its iconic status as one of the world’s most recognisable ancient monuments. But the stone circle also radiates a kind of mystical aura of its own. What brought the ancients to this place as early as 10,000…

Venom is giving scientists surprising new ways to fight disease and control the body’s internal machinery. — STUDYING VENOM is a risky business. Ask Bryan Fry: he’s been bitten by venomous creatures 27 times — mostly by snakes on land and at sea, and by box jellyfish and stingrays. …

In 1971, a small start-up launched the Intel 4004, the first general-purpose microprocessor. They had no idea it would be so big. — THE WORLD CHANGED forever on November 15, 1971. And hardly anyone noticed. China had just been admitted to the United Nations, Apollo 15 astronauts had driven the first lunar rover on the Moon, Amtrak began intercity passenger services, Pink Floyd dropped their sixth studio album, Meddle, and Stanley Kubrick’s dystopian…

It took courage to defy the certainties of life and his own faith: but Charles Darwin did it because he knew he had found a greater truth. — IT’S ONE of the greatest stories in science: how an inquisitive 22 year-old sails around the world, encounters creatures never before seen and makes an extraordinary discovery that changes his world. And yet, Charles Darwin never wanted the fame, the controversy nor the ructions the ideas triggered. But once he…

Robots are becoming increasingly useful. And they’re arriving just in time to save us from an ageing workforce, experts say. — RATHER THAN be worried that robots will take our jobs over the next 20 years, we should be more afraid there won’t be enough robots. That’s the prediction made by roboticist and serial entrepreneur Rodney Brooks. The pioneering Australian, founder of iRobot — the Boston-based billion-dollar company which has sold…

Behind every airline flight is an army of people and a phalange of technology that makes every take-off and landing possible. — FORTY MINUTES before scheduled take-off of this Qantas Boeing 747–200, the technical crew arrives: the captain, the first officer (or co-pilot) and the flight engineer. Each carries a thick, ring-bound folder, the Quick Reference Manual, with a slew of instrumentation and safety checks they will perform over the next half-hour.

A decade ago, when the first man to walk the Moon called for a new age of space exploration, it was inspiring but fanciful. That’s no longer the case. — WHAT DO YOU ask a man who walked on the Moon, and has never been able to live it down? All because he happened to be the first human being to set foot on another world? This is the thought that had me brooding a decade ago this week, as…

Begun as curiosity-driven research, it is now accelerating advances in everything from computing to medicine and finance. — BELOW THE SIZE of atoms, the world functions strangely: particles can be waves, waves can be particles, and particles can jump vast distances without traversing space. …

Thought extinct since dinosaurs roamed the world, the Wollemi Pines were rediscovered, and are now being nurtured back from oblivion. — IT HAS BEEN CALLED the botanical find of a century: a lonely stand of conifers, the last of their kind and thought to have been extinct for aeons — until three bushwalkers came across them one sunny winter afternoon. The 23 odd-looking pines, stretching up to 40 metres through the…