Most recent columns

• Identifying the dripping taps of climate change - Premium content

  Seeking out the subtle effects of carbon dioxide can lead to some bizarre conclusions, says Philip Ball.

  3 October 2008

• Battling bureaucracy with maths - Premium content

  In committees, work expands to fill the time available while growth brings inefficiency. It's worth trying to figure out why, says Philip Ball.

  22 August 2008

• Crime and punishment in the lab - Premium content

  Before we ask whether scientific misconduct is dealt with harshly enough, says Philip Ball, we need to be clear about what punishment is meant to achieve.

  8 August 2008

• Is religion good for your health? - Premium content

  Religion arose to protect us from disease, US researchers claim. Philip Ball unpicks the idea.

  1 August 2008

• Who says the Internet broadens your horizons? - Premium content

  Online access to scientific journals can be a mixed blessing, as Philip Ball finds out.

  17 July 2008

• When reporters attack - Premium content

  Scientists and the media have a notoriously difficult relationship, but maybe they get on better than we think, says Philip Ball.

  10 July 2008

• Behind the mask of the LHC - Premium content

  The physics that the Large Hadron Collider will explore has tentative philosophical foundations. But that#25;s a good thing, says Philip Ball.

  3 July 2008

• A sound theory? - Premium content

  A new theory suggests a natural basis for our preference for musical consonance. But does such a preference exist at all, wonders Philip Ball.

  13 June 2008

• Going to the Moon in a bubble - Premium content

  A paper likening the Apollo missions to the dotcom boom raises interesting questions about how society makes technological leaps, says Philip Ball.

  5 June 2008

• Why we should love logarithms - Premium content

  The tendency of 'uneducated' people to compress the number scale for big numbers is actually an admirable way of measuring the world, says Philip Ball.

  29 May 2008