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Séamus Martin at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics in Trinity College Dublin. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Access Science: Boyle Medal laureate invites us into the complex world of cells

Dick Ahlstrom

‘The world of cells is as amazing for its complexity and beauty as it is for the pragmatic way it deals with problems,’ says Séamus Martin

Neuromarketing: the battle for our brains is big business

A 3D fMRI of speech activity in the brain: high (red), medium (yellow), low (green). Photograph: Stegerphoto/Getty

Anthony King

Scientists can map thought processes using fMRI scans, and corporations see it as a golden opportunity to market their products directly to the subconscious

Computer programme beats gamers at ‘Space Invaders’

A computer programme that learns from its mistakes can teach itself how to play classic computer games such as Space Invaders, performing better than skilled human competitors at many of them.

Dick Ahlstrom

‘Artificial agent’ learns from its mistakes to master Breakout, Pong and Boxing

Amputees receive advanced robotic prosthetic hands

A technique called “bionic reconstruction” involves amputating the hand and substituting it with an advanced robotic prosthesis. Photograph: New Scientist/The Lancet/YouTube

Three patients in Austria undergo ‘bionic reconstruction’ to regain control of hands

Yeast behind velvety stout may have Silk Road origins

The study showed that yeast used to brew the perfect lager can also be pressed into service to produce excellent stout. Photograph: The Irish Times

Dick Ahlstrom

DNA analysis of substance used to brew stout shows origins are rooted in India

In the whole-class teaching method, the teacher stands at the blackboard, teaches the whole class the established body of knowledge, tests the children with questions and ensures a disciplined class environment. This type of teaching was the norm in Ireland until the 1960s. Above, schoolchildren in the west of Ireland in 1955. Photograph: Three Lions/Getty Images

The reason why modern teaching methods don’t work

William Reville

Whole-class teaching, in which childern learn to use their long-term memory, has been abandoned for a more personalised, naturalistic approach, and it’s been a disaster

‘This step has not been taken lightly.’ Above: the House of Commons backs mitochondrial donation techniques

Mitochondrial DNA donors are not a path to designer children

Aoife McLysaght

Such donation can avoid devastating medical conditions that are otherwise untreatable

In the Mathematics Genealogy Project, parent-child relationships are replaced by links between students and their doctoral supervisors or between mentors and their proteges

Isaac Newton was my father: the maths family tree

Peter Lynch

That’s Maths: It is great fun to find that Newton, Euler or Gauss is in one’s academic ‘family tree’

Bad news for those who regularly run marathons or ultra-marathons: such running can damage your health. Photograph: Thinkstock

Not enough running – and too much – is bad for your health

William Reville

Even a little regular exercise can boost your health, but beware: pushing your body too hard is damaging

Not so warm: ‘climate chaos’ might be better at capturing some of the urgency needed. Above, a house near the flooded village of Moorland in Somerset last year. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA Wire

The case for renaming ‘global warming’

Mary Mulvihill

Even 25 years ago the term seemed inadequate for communicating what was happening

A doughnut: the number of holes determines the topological character of a surface. Photograph: Thinkstock

That’s Maths: The hole truth about doughtnuts and hyperspheres

Peter Lynch

A brilliant Russian proved Poincaré’s conjecture that the hypersphere is the only solid shape with no holes

‘In December a well-argued letter to The Irish Times by David Walsh took the field of women’s studies to task for promoting the ideological notion that gender is a social construct in the face of scientific evidence that biology plays a prominent role’

Why are so many social scientists left-liberal?

William Reville

A study argues that more diversity among academics would improve social psychology research

Gregor Mendel: The ‘father of genetics’. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

How Gregor Mendel discovered the existence of genes

Aoife McLysaght

We have a Czech monk to thank for much of the early knowledge about the passage of traits to children

The use of barcodes and QR codes goes far beyond the supermarket. Photograph: Thinkstock

That's Maths: How barcodes and QR codes work

Peter Lynch

The first barcode was scanned on Wrigley’s gum in 1974. Now QR codes, which store much more data, are appearing everywhere

The former home of George Boole in Cork. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

George Boole at the intersection of science and faith

William Reville

The research of the ‘father of pure mathematics’ was significantly motivated by his faith

Joseph Dinkel’s illustration of Keraterpeton galvani, named after Charles Galvan, one of the Geological Survey of Ireland fossil collectors. Image courtesy TCD Geology Museum

Intrigue and egos in a tussle over Irish amphibian fossils in 1866

Mary Mulvihill

The discovery in Kilkenny in 1866 of the oldest amphibians then known led to underhand shenanigans

Our capacity for co-operation has deep evolutionary roots and scientists have been studying this in chimpanzees and bonobos (above), our closest living relatives. Photograph: Thinkstock

How did humans come to dominate the Earth?

William Reville

Studies suggest that co-operation played a far bigger role than aggression, but is that to underestimate our bloodlust?

MP3s have a huge impact on how people acquire and save music. Thanks to data compression, it is possible to download and store a large volume of music on a PC or iPod. Photograph: Adam Berry/Getty Images for Apple

That’s Maths: Data compression is music to most of our ears

Peter Lynch

Audiophiles decry the reduction in fidelity of ‘lossy’ compression on MP3s, but most of us don’t notice

George Boole: ‘There would be no internet, no digital computers, and no online search without him’

How George Boole gave birth to ‘pure mathematics’

Mary Mulvihill

Boole, who died 150 years ago, opened a new path for maths and will be honoured by UCC, where he worked

Recent research suggests that mindfulness meditation can make pain less bothersome to those who practise it. Photograph: Thinkstock

William Reville: Let’s be mindful about the benefits of meditation

William Reville

Meditation can be helpful, but its efficacy depends on the ends for which it is used

George Boole: became professor of mathematics at Queen’s College in 1849 despite having no degree and never having attended any university

How George Boole’s zeroes and ones changed the world

Peter Lynch

The real value of the Cork mathematician’s work emerged with the invention of the digital computer

The unusual colouration of Siamese (above) and Burmese cats – which is limited to the extremities – is due to particularly interesting genetics. Photograph: Thinkstock

What’s new, pussycat? Certainly not your DNA

Aoife McLysaght

Genes explain more than you might think about the history of the feline

Photograph: Thinkstock

After death, is there light at the end of the tunnel?

William Reville

Resuscitation medicine can now revive people who have been dead for hours, and some of them have intriguing stories to tell

Oranges and lemons: variations of gravity have important geophysical consequences – but when it comes to weight control, they can’t substitute for the old reliables

That’s Maths: Earth’s shape and spin won’t make you thin

Peter Lynch

Newton’s theory that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, flattened by rotation, was proven in the 18th century

Most whiteboards are too small for the long equations of modern physics, while good blackboards are accommodatingly big. Photograph: Thinkstock

Save the blackboard: an endangered species that is essential to scientific success

Mary Mulvihill

The benefits of chalk and blackboard to good scientific research range from size to simple friction

As grasslands cover nearly 60 per cent of the Irish landscape, the quantity of carbon dioxide sequestered annually in Irish soils is enormous but is not allowed to be factored in under current accounting procedures. Photograph: Thinkstock

Ireland could benefit from greenhouse gas finding

William Reville

Research indicates carbon emissions from grasslands are much smaller than current calculations

Short supply: anchovy fisheries, which collapsed in early 1998 when the temperature of the oceans off South America rose dramatically, may be in danger again as El Niño is expected to return this year

El Niño devastation may return for Christmas

Peter Lynch

If that happens, conditions in many regions may be extreme and global temperatures could rise

A Liberian man carries his sick brother suspected of having Ebola after being delayed admission to a treatment unit due to a lack of beds on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. Photograph: Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo

Our best chance of stopping Ebola

Aoife McLysaght

Inadequate resources, myths and cultural practices are all drivers for the spread of Ebola and need to be tackled

String theory depends on the idea of supersymmetry: every matter particle has a ‘twin’ force particle. Illustration: Getty Images

Strings, supersymmetry and the octonions that rule the universe

Peter Lynch

That’s Maths: Hamilton’s quaternions have resurfaced recently in computer graphics and astronautics

The culpably faulty study that claimed to find a link between MMR vaccination and autism scared many parents, who stopped vaccinating their children. Photograph: Thinkstock

The damage done by misconduct in science

William Reville

Loss of public trust will be the most serious consequence if misconduct is not eliminated

The new plaque at the National Botanic Gardens honouring the life and work of Matilda Knowles

To Matilda Knowles: a woman’s life in lichen honoured in death

Mary Mulvihill

Knowles, who died in 1933, will be celebrated with a plaque at the National Botanic Gardens

Ikaria: the island’s inhabitants live 10 years longer than Americans before contracting cancer or cardiovascular disease, and suffer much less from depression. Photograph: Thinkstock

The Greek island whose happy people ‘forget to die’

William Reville

It’s no myth: on Ikaria a mix of contentment, diet and social interaction extend life well beyond the norm

Ishaq ibn Hunayn’s Arabic Translation of Euclid’s Elements, AD 1270. Photograph: copyright the trustees of the Chester Beatty Library

Arabic enlightenment and the emergence of algebra

Peter Lynch

That’s Maths: Developments made during the Golden Age of Islam laid the foundations of scientific theories

Mary-Claire King has argued that all young women should be screened for the known breast-cancer risk mutations

Here’s to the geneticist who helped map the first breast cancer gene

Aoife McLysaght

Mary-Claire King’s name deserves to be more widely known

Soldiers in the US army watch as the mushroom cloud grabs the sky in the first test of an atomic weapon during the Trinity Test

That’s Maths: How Big was the Bomb?

Peter Lynch

Geoffrey Ingram Taylor realised that these photographs would allow him to estimate the energy of the explosion

Columnists

Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman -

Wal-Mart policy of raising wages should inspire others

Francess McDonnell

Francess McDonnell -

Belfast Harbour seen as economic anchor

Tom Hennigan

Tom Hennigan - South America Correspondent

Rousseff tries to ride out the storm amid loud calls for impeachment

Clifford Coonan

Clifford Coonan - Beijing Correspondent

End of Chinese ban on Irish beef a victory for diplomacy

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Features & Opinion

The Theory of Everything: Stephen Hawking film is gripping despite a black hole or two

The film is a must-see for anyone with an interest in science or intellectual triumph, although it is guilty of some oversimplifications

Astronomers discover high energy ‘super bubble’

First time super bubble linked to such high energy and seen in neighbouring galaxy

Still an ‘unperson’? Why James Watson sold his Nobel medal

The pioneering scientist, who won his award for discovering the double-helix shape of DNA with Francis Crick, hopes the $4.1m he earned at Christie’s this week will help restore his standing after his controversial ‘black IQ’ remarks

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