When Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010, precipitating the Arab Spring, no one complained that he was giving street vendors a bad name, or thoughtlessly putting those around him in danger. Clearly, we expect our scientists to be less impassioned about their...

On Thursday, Chris Huhne admitted in a speech at the Royal Society the UK government has made a consistent foul-up on nuclear energy since the 1950s. "We have made pretty much every mistake human ingenuity could devise," he said, adding "And boy, are we British inventive."

He's right:...

On 12 January 1998, astronomer Adam Riess received an email from a colleague. "In your heart, you know that this is wrong," it said.

The "it" in question was the observation, using state of the art telescopes and instrumentation, that the universe is not only expanding, but...

In a week dominated by a sense of disappointment in our young people, I've just seen something that offers hope: young people breaking the law for good reason.

Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws is a documentary that follows the fortunes of a group of...

When you write books about science, you don't expect to make the news. On Monday, though, I did. Jake Davis carried my latest book into court, waving it at journalists waiting at the entrance. Davis is accused of taking part in various hacking conspiracies, including an attack that...

Reading Steve Jones' fascinating report on the state of science coverage by the BBC, I was struck by parallels between his recommendations and efforts made by science's elite during the 1940s and 1950s. Nothing has changed it seems.

As Timothy Boon says in his brilliant Films...

While David Flory awaits trial, I can't help but be amused that the story about a physics professor running a prostitution ring has caused such a scandal. It seems to be the science thing: over on the HuffPo's US site the story carries the tag "Weird News". Why...