News and Science Teaching Resources
Culture causes gender gap in maths, say scientists
Men far outnumber women at the highest level of mathematics. The most common explanation is that more male brains than female brains are born with the talent. Now two professors from the University of Wisconsin have reviewed the evidence. They find that the gender gap is most likely caused by social and cultural factors, not biology..
1-June-2009
Don't play poker with them
Jackdaws can tell what we are looking at. Not only do they notice the direction of a human gaze, but they seem to realise what it means. This second step is astonishing for a "bird-brain". Our closest relatives, the apes, and our best friends, the dogs, don't seem to be this aware of the "eye's role in visual perception".
2-April-2009
Oily algae
Chemists report the first process to turn algae oil into biodiesel that is "both economical and eco-friendly". This could eventually lead to algae replacing petroleum as a source of fuel, they say.
25-March-2009
Smallest dinosaur
Canadian researchers have found the smallest dinosaur species in North American. Their work helps re-draw the picture of the continent's ecosystem at the height of the dinosaur age 75 million years ago.
16-March-2009
No goldfish
Scientists have found gullies on Mars where water from melting snow and ice flowed 1.25 million years ago. This may well be the closest to the present that liquid water flowed on Mars.
2-March-2009
RoboSalmon
Swimming with wild salmon as they make their last journey upriver to the place of their birth is just one application for a new underwater robot, says Euan McGookin.
14-Dec-2008
Final frontier
Keeping human waste away from drinking water is not glamorous research, admits Bill Sloan - although it can get exciting when you're hunting bugs in the world's wild places.
18-Nov-2008
Force field for Mars craft
A force field can be created that will protect the occupants of a spaceship on the long voyage to Mars, say UK scientists
4-Nov-2008
New window on solar energy
Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a better way to get energy from the sun.
10-July-2008
Single but chatty
A primitive single-celled organism has more machinery for signalling to other cells than we do.
7-July-2008
Thumbs-up to Einstein
Extreme star system supports general theory of relativity.
3-July-2008
Bird tree of life redrawn
The biggest ever study of bird genes has redrawn their tree of life - and thrown up a whole lot of surprises.
26-June-2008
Lizards pull a wheelie
Lizards get up on two legs in the same way that bikers do a wheelie. And they do it deliberately, say Australian scientists
13-June-2008
Behind the mask
Scientists have been probing the living brain to find out what is happening when we are aware of some sounds and mask out others - "the cocktail party effect".
9-June-2008
Mountain ranges rise rapidly
The Andes Mountains went through a spurt in growth that doubled their height in a far shorter time than was thought possible, according to new research.
5-June-2008
Cool bacteria
Scientists have discovered a new species of bacteria that has been buried in a Greenland glacier for 120,000 years. It is still alive.
3-June-2008
Giant flying reptiles liked to walk
The largest flying flesh-eaters ever seen on Earth walked on their hind legs and grabbed their prey by bending down and snatching it up in their enormous bills.
27-May-2008
First dinosaur tracks ever seen in Arabia
Scientists have found the first dinosaur tracks on the Arabian Peninsula. They belong to a large ornithopod dinosaur, and there are also signs of sauropods walking together along a Mesozoic mudflat.
20-May-2008
Scientists solve bird beak mystery
A team of mathematicians and engineers have shown how shorebirds use their long, thin beaks to defy gravity and get food into their mouths.
15-May-2008
The distant universe and the English spy
Astronomers on a mountain-top in Chile, where scenes for the next James Bond movie are being filmed, have been spying on the distant universe.
12-May-2008
New light on earliest Americans
The remains of a dozen huts in a peat bog 500 miles south of Santiago have provided new evidence of the earliest human settlement in the Americas.
8-May-2008
Biggest explosion ever seen
Early on Wednesday morning NASA’s Swift satellite detected an explosion from deep space that was so powerful its afterglow could be seen by the naked eye. But the explosion happened halfway across the visible universe.
21-March-2008
Real science is a fascinating, absorbing, endlessly varied and exciting subject. But school science can seem dull, dusty and irrelevant to some young students.
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Nice splicing (and transcript)
True Grit (and transcript)
Two humans, two cultures (and transcript)
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Real Science UK demo
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Learning and Teaching Scotland: science
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Ask a biologist
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BioEthics Education Project: Working with discussion
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Make it in Scotland
Leon Ray, photographic design
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