Melbourne lost its “most liveable city” title yesterday and is confronting being runner-up to Vienna after seven years at the top. These rankings are based on The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index, which “assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions”.   But the tool was actually designed

He wasn’t a pilot, and as far as authorities can tell, didn’t have a pilot’s licence. So how did a man with no apparent flying experience successfully steal and take off in a large commercial passenger plane?   According to Richard Russell – the identified culprit behind a brazen and ultimately fatal unauthorised flight above

When drivers navigate busy intersections, most of them fail to look out for pedestrians or cyclists when turning right, according to a new study. In the summer, cars must share the road with more pedestrians and cyclists than usual, and in Toronto this is causing an epidemic of car accidents. By the start of June,

Research shows we think young people have a lot more sex than they do in reality – and men have a particularly skewed view of the sex lives of young women. As part of Ipsos’ long-running studies on misperceptions, to be released in a new book, The Perils of Perception, we asked people in Britain

When it comes to online dating, a majority of men and women pursue partners who are “out of their league”, reaching out to people who are 25 percent more desirable than themselves, according to a new study.   University of Michigan professors Elizabeth Bruch and M.E.J. Newman, who study human behaviour, analysed the messages between

Life is short, and we spend a lot of our time sleeping, which is why the idea of hypnopedia, or the ability to learn during sleep, has been tantalising scientists for so long. Now, a new study adds more evidence against the whole idea.   According to the new research, while the brain is capable

Right now, roughly a third of the adult population in the Western world could legitimately tick ‘single’ under relationship status. In some ways, it’s never been easier to meet people, so why are so many of us alone? Evolutionary psychologist Menelaos Apostolou wanted to come up with a theory. So where better to turn than

All around the world, countries are seeing dwindling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Ageing populations are leading to greater spending on healthcare and pensions, but the number of people working and paying taxes is steadily going down.   As a result, these countries are at risk of becoming “demographic time bombs,” signifying a crisis

In the Australian town of Jimboomba, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Brisbane, a tawny frogmouth had an unfortunate run-in with a barbed wire fence. “If you can picture a 6 foot chain fence with barbed wire at the top – that’s where it was stuck,” senior wildlife carer and president of Reptile Rehabilitation Queensland

Our DNA and chromosomes are the basic genetic information that make us what we are. Now, in a new first, scientists have figured out how our chromosomes move inside our cells – and that this movement may play a role in our health.   There are 3 billion base pairs of DNA packed into 23

It’s easy to think the world is ending when natural disasters are pummelling vulnerable islands and politicians are threatening nuclear destruction. But take a step back and you’ll find a more encouraging picture of where the human race is headed – at least from a public health and quality of life perspective.   Across the

Do you have a short temper? Uh, so, don’t hit us, but… you may not actually be as smart as you think you are. That’s according to a new study by researchers in Poland and Australia.   And it’s because anger is strongly related to traits such as optimism and narcissism, which tend to lead

Meetings of the International Congress of Mathematics are usually pretty tame affairs, despite handing out one of the most prestigious award in mathematics. But this year, the meeting was shaken up after the Fields medal, also known as the ‘Nobel Prize’ of mathematics, was stolen from one of the winners just 30 minutes after he

New parenting books seem to pop up all the time. How to do it the French way, the Tiger Mom way, the New Kid by Friday way, or how to just muddle through – the choice can be a little overwhelming.   How can we know which guide will give us the answers to the

Just in case you’re thinking of taking up a second language soon, language-learning website Voxy put together this handy infographic breaking down which languages are hardest for English speakers to learn.   Compiled using information from multiple sources, including the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State, the infographic breaks down the amount

When it comes to predicting who is most likely to act in a trustworthy manner, one of the most important factors is the anticipation of guilt, according to a new study. In the study, researchers identify a trait predictor of trustworthy intentions and behavior. They also provide practical advice for deciding in whom we should

One of Japan’s top medical universities has been systematically blocking female applicants from entering the school for at least eight years, local news agencies reported on Thursday.   Tokyo Medical University, a private institution consistently ranked among the country’s best for clinical medicine, has been automatically lowering the entrance exam results of female applicants for

In his book Fluent Forever, opera singer Gabriel Wyner suggests that one of the best ways to learn a new language is to practice remembering it. In other words, instead of reading and re-reading a list of vocabulary words, you should read it once and then test yourself repeatedly.   The same strategy works for pretty much

Unmarked graves, such as those in which murder victims are often callously concealed, may soon be easier to locate, thanks to a technique demonstrated by US researchers. They have found that LIDAR, a tool proving increasingly useful in archaeology, can also be applied to forensics.   They have shown that the shallow graves these bodies

The sediment under a lake in Mexico contains some of the long-sought answers to the mystery of the Mayan demise. Ancient Mayans, primarily concentrated in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, were among the most advanced civilizations of their time. Mayans were some of the first to build cities.   They used astronomy to advance

Even before Stonehenge became Stonehenge, the beloved and mysterious sarsen monument we know today, it was an important place to the people of the Mesolithic and Neolithic that inhabited the region.   Bone remains suggest it was once an important burial place for at least hundreds of years – and now a new analysis has

Scientists think that a series of famous mass burial sites in the Pacific and northern Scotland are the final resting places for the prehistoric victims of catastrophic tsunamis.   While archaeologists have uncovered numerous mass burial sites all around the world, figuring out the story behind these mass graves can be quite difficult to determine,

It’s treated as a taboo subject, but miscarriages of pregnancy happen a lot. Well according to a new paper, they happen a lot more than any of us may realise – even the women having them. The research has found that more than half of successful fertilisations will end in miscarriage.   The research, which

Your social calendar might be sucking the joy out of activities that are supposed to be fun or relaxing, according to an upcoming paper co-written by a professor who studies time management.   The paper argues that when a leisure activity is planned rather than spontaneous, we enjoy it less. That’s because we tend to

The human brain is a pretty damn amazing organ. Get rid of one bit, and sometimes the brain will just say “I’ve got this” and figure out how to repurpose something else. Take the man with damage to 90 percent of his brain who is out there living his best life. Or the woman who lived for

“The probability that ‘In My Life’ was written by McCartney is .018.” “Which basically means it’s pretty convincingly a Lennon song.” And with that, Harvard researcher and passionate Beatles fan Mark Glickman made his telling contribution to one of the eternal pop music pub arguments – who wrote the Beatles’ best tracks?   The difference

On 8 March, 2014, Zaharie Ahmad Shah radioed air traffic controllers, “Good night, Malaysia,” as the Boeing 777 he was piloting left the country’s airspace. A short time later, he and the 250 foot (67 metre) plane disappeared.   By daybreak, Zaharie and the 238 other people on MH370 would be at the center of

Dark triad personality (DTP) traits are narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. These traits manifest in people as excessive self-love, a manipulative attitude, and a lack of empathy.   It’s unclear how many people in the population have these traits, but various studies and estimates put the number somewhere between 1 percent and 10 percent. DTPs are

Archaeologists working in Ukraine have found something they’ve never seen before: the bones of a young woman, buried 4,500 years ago, carefully decorated with black markings before being interred in a burial mound.   The bones, of a woman aged 25-30 and excavated by a Polish-Ukrainian team, were actually discovered a few years ago, in

If you’re out to start a religion, it might be more important to aim high rather than wide and sign up the big names first. That’s the take-home message from a study on the history of Christianity, which found its reach across the globe had less to do with the hoi polloi spreading the word,

Around 500 or 600 years ago, two young girls, aged roughly 9 and 18 years, were buried in the finest of Incan style in Northern Chile. Their grave goods were rich and abundant; their burial clothes coloured the deepest red – and a heavy sprinkling, researchers have now found, of the toxic pigment cinnabar.  

Nobody knows his name, nor the language he speaks, or spoke. But there he is, still alive and still alone, in newly released footage shot deep in the lush growth of the Amazon rainforest.   Some call him the the Man of the Hole, in reference to the deep pits he digs to catch wildlife.

Dreaming is one of the strangest things that happens to us, and for as long as we have been recording history, we have been puzzling over why our minds are so active while we sleep.   Finally, new research claims to have evidence as to what dreaming is all about – and it will probably

A first-of-its-kind four-day work week experiment in New Zealand has come to an end after two months, but the trial went so well the company actually wants to make the changes permanent.   While lots of research has shown the numerous benefits a reduced work week can provide to employees, what’s remarkable about this trial

I had what seemed like rather a good idea a few weeks back. Building on some prominent findings in social psychology, I hypothesised that politicians on the right would wipe their bum with their left hand; and that politicians on the left would wipe with their right hand.   Ludicrous? Yes – absolutely. But for

Forty-nine years ago this Friday, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the Moon. That day, they also became the first people to harvest samples from another celestial body and bring them back to Earth.   Over the course of the Apollo missions, astronauts collected about 2,200 individual samples

It’s been a few days since archaeologists from Egypt’s antiquities ministry pried open a mysterious, 27 tonne (30 ton) black sarcophagus, and no ancient curse has befallen the planet despite tabloid warnings.   The sarcophagus was first found earlier in July by construction workers in a residential area of Alexandria, a city on Egypt’s Mediterranean

One snowy January day, I asked a classroom of college students to tell me the first word that came to mind when they thought about mathematics. The top two words were “calculation” and “equation.”   When I asked a room of professional mathematicians the same question, neither of those words were mentioned; instead, they offered

You probably know that, for the most part, Yellowstone National Park is located in Wyoming. But there’s a small sliver of the park that crosses the border into Idaho, and that tiny, 130-square-km (50-square-mile) patch is known as the Zone of Death.    Why? Well, thanks to a loophole in the US Constitution, you could technically

It’s hard to say exactly why you like someone. Maybe it’s their goofy smile; maybe it’s their razor-sharp wit; or maybe it’s simply that they’re easy to be around. You just like them.   But scientists generally aren’t satisfied with answers like that, and they’ve spent years trying to pinpoint the exact factors that draw

After days of intense and viral speculation, archaeologists in Egypt this week finally opened up that mysterious, 2,000-year-old giant black sarcophagus. So far, no curse has been unleashed (that we know of), but the team did discover something slightly gruesome inside – three skeletons, most likely soldiers, decaying in a pool of dark red, murky

Warning: This story contains graphic — if not disgusting, yet fascinating — videos and physical descriptions of the act of popping pimples. Believe it or not, there’s an entire subculture of people really passionate about popping pimples.   Sandra Lee, a dermatologist in Southern California, calls them “popaholics” and their sickening — yet, somewhat intriguing — obsession with

Thanks to high school, we’ve all got a pretty good idea about what’s on the periodic table. But whether you’re looking at something common like calcium, iron, and carbon, or something more obscure like krypton and antimony, how well do you know their functions? Could you name just one practical application for vanadium or ruthenium? 

It may soon be possible for parents to edit the genes of their children before they’re born, changing their DNA in ways that could affect their health and enhance their senses, strength, or even intelligence.   The situation is so close to becoming reality, in fact, that genetic experts have pushed in recent years for

All those liquids made out of soy, almond, rice, coconut or oats won’t be called milk anymore, if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has its way. According to the government body’s definition, the word “milk” only refers to lactate from an animal, preferably a cow. And whatever was squeezed out of that soybean

Tens of thousands of years before Swiss inventor Karl Elsener attached a corkscrew to a pocketknife, Neanderthals had their own multipurpose tools: hand axes. These four- or five-inch (10 -13 centimetre) stones were cut into large teardrop shapes, with wide bases that tapered to twin cutting edges. Neanderthals used hand axes to chop and carve

Egyptian archaeologists on Thursday pried open a mysterious 30-ton black sarcophagus and found three skeletons, including one that had suffered a blow to the skull. Legends abounded about the sarcophagus, which construction workers found earlier this month more than 16 feet (5 metres) below ground in a residential area of Alexandria.   Some observers thought

In one of the largest studies of its kind, scientists have made a fascinating discovery. Nearly 40 percent of people have a first memory that is entirely fictional. It’s not that their memories are muddled and out of sequence – but that they never happened at all.   Researchers surveyed 6,641 people about the earliest