Technology How to tell a fender bender from a pile-up SYSTEMS that broadcast an alert when a car has crashed risk swamping emergency services with trivial calls about scraped fenders. Such systems need to get much smarter, says Daniel Talmor, a doctor at the intensive care unit of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Otherwise paramedics will waste a lot of their time … 51¶¯Âþ
Life Interview: Footsteps in the sand Some 60,000 years ago, modern humans meandered out of Africa, but the details of this migration are murky. What routes did they take? How could they have crossed deserts and mountain ranges? Did they leave and later return? To find the answers to some of these questions, last year the US National Geographic Society in … Opinion
Life Blasts from the past: Superstar soprano males The popularity of the castrato voice reached its peak with opera performances in early-18th-century Italy To celebrate the launch of 51¶¯Âþ 's latest book, Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers , we've asked its editor, Stephanie Pain, to select four of her favourite blasts from the past, together with a brand new one Read more: " … Features
Life Consciousness: In here, out there, somewhere? IS THE mind locked into the brain? Are conscious experiences just bits of the brain? That's the way it looks to most people, including a large number of researchers. So it might come as a bit of a shock to discover that quite a few scientists and philosophers disagree. According to the standard model of … Books & Arts
Feedback Is our oxygen vanishing? YOU too can be the proud owner of an Obox Personal Oxygen Generator. It "provides up to 150 per cent of the body's normal oxygen requirement via a headset", and "supplies negatively charged ions to replicate clean forest air". Why do we need to spend £150 on one of these things? … Regulars