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The genetic data around human difference is inconclusive – but that does not stop right-wing thinkers using it to excuse profound social inequalities
The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, did not speak out when asked about the Dominic Cummings affair, compromising urgent public health messaging. This makes their positions untenable.
We have built AI systems that can do everything from diagnose our illnesses to drive our cars. But how can we trust them if we don’t understand them?
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was as much a symbol of a failed ideology as of flawed design and technology.
Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe 300 years ago and his castaway – capitalist, imperialist, pragmatist – has stood for versions of Englishness ever since.
As China lands an uncrewed craft on the far side of the moon, humanity continues to look to space for salvation. But 50 years after the moon landing, we still have not found the answers we were looking for.
Why the Victorian anxieties that underlie HG Wells’s masterpiece have never gone away.
The study of the genes which affect intelligence could revolutionise education. But, haunted by the spectre of eugenics, the science risks being lost in a political battle.
We are on the cusp of a new era of computing, with Google, IBM and other tech companies using a theory launched by Einstein to build machines capable of solving seemingly impossible tasks.
A baby grown from a flake of skin or from the genes of three parents – the future of reproduction is mind-boggling.
