Working late one night, Alan Guth accidentally struck upon a solution to the birth of the cosmos. Until then, he’d had trouble holding down a job.By Wilson da SilvaALAN GUTH still finds it amazing that he can understand anything about the first few…

The Man Who Inflated the Universe

For decades forgotten in a warehouse, one of the grandfathers of modern computers has been restored.By Wilson da SilvaThe world was a different place in 1949: vinyl LP records had just been invented, the now-iconic Volkswagen Kombi van debuted on the…

CSIRAC: The Only First-Generation Computer Still in Existence

Poor microbial diversity in urban soils is making us sicker — and the solution lies in the wilderness.by Wilson da SilvaMEANDERING DOWN&nbsp; the narrow tracks from the summit of Mount Lofty, near Adelaide in South Australia, you feel invigorated by…

Why the Outdoors Are Good for Your Health — and Your Microbiome

It turns out silk, an ancient natural fibre, has versatile uses in medicine — especially when combined with diamonds.By Wilson da SilvaASMA KHALID enjoys wearing a silk dress, and appreciates diamonds for their beauty. But she never expected both…

Silk & Diamonds: The Fancy End of High-Tech Medicine

Westerners can find robots creepy, but the Japanese see them as endearing — thanks to a 600-year-old tradition.By Wilson da SilvaWHY ARE WE so afraid of robots? It’s not just anxiety about the job-killing potential of creeping automation and the rise…

Why Japan Fears Not the Robot

The Earth changed forever 66 million years ago&nbsp;(IgorZh/Shutterstock)On a clear day 66 million years ago, the sky abruptly caved in and 75% of all life became extinct.By Wilson da SilvaSIXTY-SIX MILLION&nbsp;years ago, in one cataclysmic flash,…

Sudden Impact: The Day the Dinosaurs Perished

A new breed of automatons — friendly, even soft to the touch— is replacing the clunky robots of old. And they’re moving into the real world at remarkable speed.THERE IS SOMETHING&nbsp;unnerving about Geminoid F. She breathes, blinks, smiles, sighs,…

My Robot Friend: The Promise of Social Robots

Truly revolutionary technologies come from the most unlikely places, like cosmology, which gave us lasers, GPS and even Wi-Fi.By Wilson da SilvaIT’S THE ULTIMATE question: where did we come from? How did we get here? They are questions which have…

How Lasers and Wi-Fi Were Born, Thanks to Cosmology

Once, all deep space photography was black-and-white. Then a chemist in Australia developed a new technique, and colour exploded from the heavens.By Wilson da SilvaFEW PEOPLE have a building named after them, much less an asteroid, a planet or a…

The Man Who Coloured the Cosmos

A powerful beacon sent to an Earth-like planet has reached the halfway mark. This is the improbable story behind Australia’s first attempt to contact an extraterrestrial civilisation.&nbsp;By Wilson da SilvaIMAGINE YOU&nbsp;could send a text message…

‘Hello From Earth’: The Unlikely Story of an Interstellar Message

A gifted artist, Pasteur had wanted to teach painting; instead, he proved microbes cause disease and showed the world how to stop them. His work led to the salvation of millions.By Wilson da SilvaLOUIS PASTEUR never really wanted to study science: in…

Louis Pasteur: From Portrait Painter to Medical Saviour

The more diverse the microbe community in the soils around us, and the more you are exposed to it, the healthier you become.By Wilson da SilvaEVEN ON A BLUSTERY winter’s afternoon, Mount Lofty flaunts its splendour as a bushland oasis, one of the…

The Good Earth

By Wilson da SilvaWHAT WOULD YOU say to an alien civilisation on an Earth-like planet far, far away?This message from Sophie of Longmont, Colorado, in the United States, is just one of almost 26,000 sent from Australia to an Earth-like planet 20…

FEATURE | The story of Australia's first interstellar message

With cyber attacks now tougher to combat, engineers are turning to artificial intelligence techniques that hunt and contain intruders.THERE’S A WAR ON in cyberspace. Every day, thousands of attacks are mounted against computers and networks across…

Artificial Intelligence Enters the Frontline of Cyberwarfare

Scientists in Australia are plying the subatomic realm for a range of new defence applications.By Wilson da SilvaEVEN WARFARE is going quantum: in Australia, researchers have started plying the subatomic realm for a range of possible defence…

Quantum Warriors: New Weapons from Spooky Physics

He survived a Nazi labour camp, stumbled into chemistry and won a Nobel Prize. Then Roald Hoffmann returned to his first love: literature.By Wilson da SilvaFOR A HANDFUL&nbsp;of the world’s best scientists — those suffering from&nbsp;nobelomania–…

Alchemy, Poetry … and the Holocaust

Observing a five-hour operation to correct spinal deformity is a fascinating experience – but not one for the faint hearted.By Wilson da Silva"YOU’VE NEVER seen&nbsp;an operation before?” asked Dr Chris Pike as we entered Theatre One at the Prince of…

Spinal Surgery, Complete with ‘True Love’

Marie Curie was an undisputed scientific giant, and the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. But her research also eventually claimed her life.By Wilson da SilvaAN AILING&nbsp;François Mitterrand, in the final weeks of his last term as French…

Radiance: The Brilliant Career of Marie Curie

What’s it really like to watch a space shuttle blast off? Even for someone who’s seen hours of footage, it’s literally breathtaking.By Wilson da SilvaIF HUMANITY HAS&nbsp;a beachhead to the stars, this is it: Cape Canaveral. This sandy promontory,…

The Space Shuttle: Remembering the Final Flight of a Legend

 Another example is the 1965 Physics Prize won by Japan’s Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Americans Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics. British theoretical physicist and…