Judging a book through its cover

Thousands upon thousands of antique books are locked away in archival centres, withstanding the uncompromising tooth of time. Careful handling of the books — especially the rare ones — can be a pretty tricky business. Whenever there is a need to conduct obscure research on a book or to look up rare information

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Graphene has put its foot in the door towards real-world electronics

Graphene is essentially a wonderkid material, as we have reported time and time again. It’s great at conducting heat and electricity, and it’s extremely strong and stable, on top of being only an atom thick. These amazing properties would single-handedly transform the world of consumer electronics, not to mention industrial applications. But researchers have struggled to move beyond tiny lab samples for studying its material properties to larger pieces for real-world applications.

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Human activity is actually not all bad for our planet, new research shows

We are so used to hearing about climate change and the negative impact that human activity has on the environment of our planet, that we rarely even think about what we could do to not only stop hurting it, but to actively start helping. It is by all accounts accidental, but it does not make it any less true that as new research shows, 13,000 years of repeated occupation by British Columbia’s coastal First Nations has had a positive effect on the area, enhancing temperate rainforest productivity.

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