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Explore the most exciting new ideas and emerging concepts in science, health, technology and the environment with Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s exclusive in-depth articles, interviews and long reads.

Technology

Crystal engineering – the natural way

A sea urchin grows its spines as a single crystal of calcium carbonate. Many organisms can fashion minerals into the most fantastic shapes for specific uses. Now, chemists are learning how to do it in the laboratory

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Science advice – an abuser’s guide: Most politicians claim that they recognise the value of advice from scientists and technologists. But is the advice worth anything when weighed in the scales of politics?

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Liming fails the acid test:

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The intricate wiring that lets us move: Studies of the complex nerve circuits in one part of the brain are beginning to reveal why people with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases make bizarre movements

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Replicating the expert: What constitutes human skill? How can we devise computer programs that encapsulate such knowledge, with the aim of enhancing skills rather than replacing them? In Scandinavia, philosophy is being used to help to create ‘human-cent

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The rise and fall of Mount Etna: A volcano’s shape candetermine where on its slopes people are at the greatest risk from eruptionsof lava and ash. Monitoring and interpreting these subtle distortions hasproved worthwhile on Etna; the same techniques could

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Matrimony, mattresses and mites

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Soviet energy . . . power and the people: Mikhail Gorbachovcelebrates five years as leader of the Soviet Union. His ambitious programmeof reform depends on an expansion of the country’s energy network – Anotheraspect of the economy’s revitalisation

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Life

Microbes on the move

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Moldan’s new ministry

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The remaking of Czechoslovakian science: Since 1968, dissident scientists in Czechoslovakia have struggled to keep up their research. Now they have begun the mammoth task of reorganising their institutions

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In search of empty space – the Cluster mission: Space is not as empty as it sounds. Four European satellites will take a close look at the Earth’s surroundings in the middle of the 90s, hoping to find out how auroras form. The results could reveal secret

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Another life for electronics: As our homes fill with conventional electronics, Japanese firms are looking for new ways of selling us their products. And from experience, there is little we can do to stop them

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Who’s a clever parrot, then?: Few people would think it ethical to keep an ape in a cage in their front room, but parrots may be as bright as primates. And trade in parrots as pets is driving many to extinction

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