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Does “more” always equal “better”? When it comes to things we enjoy – holidays, money, gadgets, convenience – it seems obvious that the answer must be a resounding “yes.” We equate “more” with progress. Businesses promise more products for their customers and more returns for their shareholders. Charities aim to provide more support to greater numbers of people. Content creators hope for more readers, views and subscribers. Politicians continually promise more economic growt

Have you made the switch to electric yet? One of the challenges preventing more people from adopting electric vehicles is concern over battery life and charging capacity. Often referred to as "range anxiety," this is the fear of whether the car will reach the next charging station in time.   And even if you make it, will the charger actually work? The current charging infrastructure still leaves much to be desired, often forcing drivers to go miles out of their way to find a

The global population is expected to pass 10 billion within the next few decades. That means we’ll have doubled the number of people on the planet in less than 100 years. As a result, the world faces an existential dilemma: how do we boost production to feed billions more people while reducing agriculture’s negative impact on the environment?  For thousands of years, farming has been central to human civilisation. But the looming "population bomb" means we’re going to need so

Science can sometimes feel like an abstract concept – something that happens in sealed-off labs full of people in white coats making impressive-sounding discoveries. But what if the workings of science can happen much closer than that? In your town, on your street… in your home?  This isn’t about inviting teams in hazmat suits round for tea (unless you really want to), but instead the idea that science is something that we can all get involved with. An ever-growing number o

The designs of some of our greatest inventions are inspired by nature – from imitating birds to build flying machines, leaves to design solar panels, or brains to construct the neural networks behind AI. This concept of taking a leaf from nature's design book is called "biomimicry".  But we've only just scratched the surface of this vast encyclopedia of design inspiration. The natural world is the most advanced Research & Development lab in existence. It has spent billions of

Last month was the hottest ever recorded on Earth. It is a fact that the planet is heating up and, without drastic action, the changing climate threatens to unleash a wave of global disasters. Human activities are responsible for this and, while we are taking some gradual steps to become greener, we still generate most of our energy by burning heat-trapping carbon. But what if, in addition to reducing our carbon dependency, we could undo some of the damage we’ve already in

The climate. You probably know a thing or two about where it's heading (somewhere bad), but you're not entirely sure how to improve it. After all, you're just one person. Do actions like recycling and using smart energy meters make that much difference? Is there a right and a wrong way to improve the environment? These questions and more are the focus of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, written by the one and only Bill Gat

In the late 19th century, America was gripped by an engineering battle that would forever change the world. In the "war of the currents," inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse (with some help from Nikola Tesla) raced to find the best way to bring electricity to cities and industries. Edison favoured a system called direct current (DC) while Westinghouse championed alternating current (AC). After a brutal fight, the latter won out, the world adopted AC, and the rest

For many of us, the concept of nuclear power can sound a bit scary. We hear the word "nuclear" and images of mushroom clouds, Chernobyl or other more recent disasters spring to mind. And it’s not a completely irrational response – when thing go wrong with nuclear, they go very wrong. But it got me wondering – might we take a more rounded view of the pros, cons and untapped potential of nuclear power if we had a better understanding of how it works? We set ourselves the chall

What if we could predict the behaviour of bush and forest fires before they ever break out? Thanks to the bright sparks working away at some of the world’s most exciting startups and research institutions, breakthroughs in space technology could soon be setting the world ablaze – in a good way. As if we didn’t have enough on our plates, recent history has seen angry, ruthless blazes ripping through the natural environment like, well, wildfire. From Australia to the Amazon, Ca

A 2021 study by WWF found an area of forest totalling 43 million hectares – almost double the size of the UK – was wiped out in just 13 years across the world’s key deforestation hotspots. Unsurprisingly, commercial agriculture was found to be the leading cause of deforestation. The Amazon rainforest is approaching a tipping point, where scientists fear losing a further 5% of area could lead to runaway climate change. Finding a solution is now a race against time. Enter tech

With temperatures continuing to rise around the world, it’s clear we’ll need to rely on something other than rain dances to fend off droughts.  That’s where 'cloud seeding' comes in – a type of weather modification that typically aims to increase the amount of rain or snow. According to a March 2021 article in The Guardian : Cloud seeding involves using aircraft or drones to add small particles of silver iodide, which have a structure similar to ice, to clouds. Water droplets

When I think of farming, I picture tractors, wellington boots, hay bales and an awful lot of hard work. A farm would be one of the last places I’d consider to be futuristic. But I’d be wrong. Agritech start-ups around the world are on a mission to reinvent farming. And yes, we’re talking robots. In December 2020, Intelligent Living published an article detailing how a two-acre vertical farm run by artificial intelligence and robots out-produced a 720-acre flat farm. That’s q

You’ll often hear about “must-watch” television: the latest water-cooler thriller from HBO or the long-awaited finale of insert generic celebrity “talent” show here . Rarely should these programmes be considered compulsory viewing. David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet , on the other hand, very much should be. I’d go as far as to say it should be mandatory for all school-age children to watch at least once. Yes, there are graphic scenes of death and destruction — the snip

When you read the terms “space”, “clutter” and “junk”, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m about to launch into a Marie Kondo-esque lecture on the power of tidying up. Except I’m not talking about rolling up your socks in your bedroom drawer, but the satellites and debris that orbit our planet. In October 2020, New Scientist reported that a major collision between two “old spacecraft” was narrowly avoided, passing within just 12 metres of each other on 16th of the month: “The

You’ve watched David Attenborough shows. You’ve listened to Greta Thunberg speak. You’ve read about international initiatives instigated to combat it. Climate change is all around us. Literally. The highest ever UK temperature was recorded on 25th July 2019 in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. It’s no coincidence that it’s so recent. Global warming is transforming the environment as we know it and, if we don’t act now, will continue to do so with the direst of conseque

When you think of an advert for Microsoft you might expect the “Now only £499” fodder from Currys PC World or the like. But a couple of weeks ago, my curiosity was piqued by a very different type of TV spot: one providing an insight into Microsoft’s collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust. With the tagline “Microsoft AI: Empowering us all”, the 67-second overview explains how Artificial Intelligence is able to do in ten minutes what would take a human ten days. The Snow Le

The new fully electric MINI has landed. How soon you’ll get the opportunity to drive one, however, is up for debate. Somehow I don’t think test driving a shiny new hatchback could be considered “essential” right now.   Even if you are so inclined, it may take a while for the automotive industry to get back into gear (MINI stalled production at all UK, European and South African plants earlier in the year due to Coronavirus). But that doesn’t mean we can’t look forward to the

Prior to the nationwide Coronavirus lockdown, Greggs — the UK bakery chain — was making the  news   for all the right reasons.   Not only has their vegan sausage roll proved to be a game changer, but the bigwigs at Head Office felt it right to share the product’s success directly with employees in the form of a £7m bonus payout. And they didn’t stop there... ​ Their new Vegan Steak Bake resulted in empty shelves in stores across the nation as they  struggled to meet demand.