Babbage: A little more conservation

The universe—and everything inside it—shouldn’t exist. The big bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter, and their mutual annihilation should have resulted in nothing more than a sprawling ball of energy. But, in fact, the universe is dominated by matter, while antimatter is…

In the popular imagination, the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant sits in an abandoned, post-apocalyptic wasteland. In reality, the site of the world’s worst nuclear-energy disaster is a thriving experimentation ground for scientists studying the long-term impacts of radiation. This week, 40 years afte…

The AI race is intensifying. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, according to Demis Hassabis, the boss of Google DeepMind. Journalist and biographer Sebastian Mallaby has had unprecedented access to Mr Hassabis over the past three years. In this episode, he tells us how the AI pioneer was swept into…

Sporting history was made at this year’s London Marathon. Sabastian Sawe became the first man to finish a competitive race in less than two hours. How are elite athletes getting so much faster? We investigate how runners are harnessing the science of physiology and the technology of shoes to increa…