Large Hadron Collider: What is it and why is it so important for our understanding of everything in the world? April 7, 2015 Keen particle physicists received the best Easter present possible over the weekend – after two years of being in hibernation, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland was rebooted once more. The machine holds promises to advance understanding of the laws of physics at the most minuscule yet fundamental level. By recreating temperatures [...]
Women’s life expectancy has fallen for the first time since 1995 – and it could be because they’re taking up traditionally male habits April 7, 2015 Female life expectancy among the over-60s in the UK has stopped rising for the first time in two decades, and for some age groups it has actually gone down, a new study shows. Women aged 65 had the same life expectancy in 2011 and 2013, while older women experienced a slight fall during the two [...]
Charged in 60 seconds: Superfast battery could charge smartphones and laptops in just one minute April 7, 2015 An end to dead smartphone batteries? An experimental battery which can be recharged from zero to 100 per cent in an “unprecedented” 60 seconds has the potential to revolutionise technological devices. Made of aluminium rather than lithium or alkaline like those currently used in smartphones and laptops, the battery is also safer and cheaper to [...]
World Health Day 2015: These are the world’s healthiest cities to live in April 7, 2015 It's World Health Day – an annual event created by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to remind us of the importance of healthy living across the world. With pollution levels rising and the number of people suffering from obesity steadily increasing, the need for us to assess our lifestyle choices is growing. But in the [...]
Easter Sunday 2015: Six ways get healthy and lose weight after a chocolate-filled weekend April 5, 2015 Over Easter weekend, most of us (rightly) indulged in chocolates, hot crossed buns and every other kind to sweet thing we could get our hands on. It was great at the time, but it's left behind a definite feeling of poor health. To get you feeling healthier and looking slimmer as quickly and easily as [...]
Funding Circle’s new funding round will value the London FinTech startup at $1bn April 2, 2015 Funding Circle is on the verge of closing a new round of funding which would value the London FinTech startup at more than $1bn (£674m) and see it join just a handful of UK tech companies with billion-dollar valuations. The peer-to-peer lender could close funding of more than £50m within weeks, including backing from Blackrock and [...]
A real flying saucer could soon deliver us to Mars, thanks to Nasa April 2, 2015 Flying saucers could soon jump from the realms of science fiction to reality, thanks to an invention by Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory. With its inflatable heat shield and circular shape, the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) looks just like something you might see in Star Trek, except it is real and could one day take us [...]
Airbnb Cuba: Now you can book a rental in Havana for the first time after lifting of 50-year trade embargo April 2, 2015 Airbnb is the latest company to benefit from the end of a 50-year trade embargo between Cuba and the US. The San Francisco rental startup, which is valued at $10bn, has added Cuban rental properties to its website for the first time. It will add more than 1,000 properties across the Caribbean island to its [...]
EE offers free phone charging on the go with portable power bars April 2, 2015 EE is keeping smartphone addicts sweet with a new scheme that offers free phone charging. Putting an end to one of the biggest scourges of modern-life – limited battery life – and the panic felt by anyone whose mobile flashes the five per cent warning, the mobile network will rolling out its new EE Power service [...]
Investment in London’s tech startups hit record levels of $682m in 2015 April 2, 2015 Investment in London’s technology sector has hit a record high, once again proving the city’s attractiveness to investors as firms in the capital gained more than half-a-billion dollars in backing in 2015. In the first quarter of the year, in which established tech startups such as World Remit, Transferwise and Shazam received multi-million pound funding [...]