Features

In 1945, the first successful ballpoint pen went on sale in the United States and Britain. Initially seen as an expensive novelty, the Biro soon went on to become not only a part of our everyday lives, but one that revolutionized how we communicate.

Fifty years ago this weekend, NASA's Mariner 9 probe went into orbit around Mars. This pioneering mission revolutionized our ideas about Mars and, with humans looking to head that way, is a timely reminder of just how utterly inhospitable a place it is.

Normal matter has an “evil twin” that annihilates on contact, and despite decades of study antimatter remains very mysterious. So what actually is it? Where is it? Why is it important to understand? And why hasn’t it already destroyed the universe?

The urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has put the nuclear energy debate squarely back on the agenda. So how does nuclear energy energy work, where is it headed, and can the atom become "our friend" again?

Sixty years ago this week, America sent its second man into space. The mission had gone flawlessly, but nearly ended in tragedy when the Liberty Bell 7 Mercury space capsule sank into the sea, almost taking astronaut Virgil Grissom with it.

How much of a problem is it if participants in psychedelic clinical trials can easily tell they have been given a placebo? Researcher Suresh Muthukumaraswamy suggests it is, and many findings from recent psychedelic trials may be over-estimated.

With psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy on the cusp of broad clinical approval, millions of people may soon experience these hallucinogenic drugs for the first time. Can a genetic test help predict how individuals will respond to psychedelics?

On May 5, 1961, about 45 million US television viewers watched as a single-stage Redstone rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Mercury Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard on a 15-minute flight to become America's first man in space.

Several hundred million people around the world have safely received a wildly effective COVID-19 vaccine based on mRNA technology. So what exactly is an mRNA vaccine, where did the technology come from, and what other diseases could it be useful for?