science
Pythagoras and his cult: Unravelling the mysteries of an ancient mathematical sect
Pythagoras is synonymous with the Pythagorean theorem, a fundamental concept in mathematics that students encounter early on in their maths education.
12.2024 | G.H. Thacker
PART 1: The Hazards of travelling to Mars: Isolation and confinement
As humans, we have an inherent need for connection and social interaction with others. It is no surprise that we are social beings with social needs. Simultaneously, as we look to broaden our horizons, we enter environments that are not wellsuited to our needs.
09.2024 | Joshua Gordon
How we can (or can’t) experience the Schrödinger’s cat principle in everyday life
In the world’s most famous thought experiment, physicist Erwin Schrödinger described the uncertain predicament of a cat in a box.
09.2024 | Debby Edelstein
What they don’t teach at engineering school (and what they do)
The chances are good that you’ve been exposed to the overuse of the phrases problem-solving and critical thinking. Almost in the next breath, you’ve probably heard about the insatiable demand for engineers in the workplace.
07.2024 | Rachel Edelstein
Decoding birds' brain signals into syllables of song
Could the unique song of a bird someday, miraculously, help give a voice to people who have lost the ability to speak?
06.2024 | Adrian Ephraim
What I learned making a video game
In 1981, the arcade game Centipede was released by Atari, a world leader of the video game market in the late 20th century. Following the same formula as several other famous arcade games of the time, such as Pac-Man and Galaxian, the game involves a moving, player-controlled object (also known as the Bug Blaster) that tries to eliminate the enemy (Centipede) that appears on the screen.
05.2024 | Rachel Edelstein
How rudeness leads to Anchoring in life and death situations
We’ve seen it all too often. A rush of blood to the head, a moment of insanity, an “emotional” decision taken through the spoken word, or an action that can never be taken back.
01.2024 | Adrian Ephraim
Artificial intelligence vs the world.
‘Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov’ was a clashing of six game chess matches between World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and IBM supercomputer Deep Blue
10.2023 | Josh Gordon
Yes, they really are listening to us
Amidst all the revolutions that are sweeping the world, from economic to political, the omnipresent Fourth Industrial Revolution keeps powering ahead with no sign of reaching a peak or slowing down. One aspect of it which receives surprisingly little media coverage and rarely enters discussion is the radical development of voice profiling.
09.2023 | Athalie Russell Besseling
How Gaming Conquered the World
For many, the 70s marked the beginnings of the true modern phenomenon that is broadcast television. In 1976 South Africans gathered around these boxy units with fiddly buttons and bunny ear aerials waiting to be amazed, and they would not be disappointed.
08.2023 | Alistair Duff
Medicine, Pigeons and Pattern Recognition
Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of regularities in data. In recent years, and particularly with the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it has become significant to many industries.
04.2023 | Rachel Edelstein
The future of flight technology
The delicately beautiful butterfly finds itself at the centre of new research which reveals a secret hiding in plain sight that could influence the future of flying technology.
02.2023 | Adrian Ephraim
The 4thIndustrial Revolution Series: The internet of things
“Imagine a world”, I would say, “where your bathroom scale speaks to your fridge. Your fridge then speaks to your supermarket, and they all decide to put you on diet.
05.2022 | Barry Dwolatzky
Liespotting series: Even more lies Part 3
In the modern era, there has been the propensity to demonise lying and to judge those caught in the act of deceit. From business leaders like Madoff to truly global leaders like Clinton
04.2022 | Alistair Duff
Behavioural Economics in action - Climate change
A qualified high school student is accepted to university but gets confused while applying for financial aid and fails to enrol. An individual with HIV is prescribed free antiretroviral medications but fails to take them consistently.
02.2022 | Joshua Gordon
Have you ever felt like a fraud?
While much has been written about the mindset of very successful people, from their strategies and beliefs to their general outlook, surprisingly little has been said about a very real drawback many will face during their careers.
02.2022 | Alistair Duff
A likely successor to the information age
These days, catchphrases and conceptual hype turn any passing fads into megatrends – or attempt to. Real ‘Ages’ however, are rare.
12.2021 | LEO
Bowling alleys and social capital
You might ask what bowling alleys have to do with social cohesion? Or even what relationship exists between individual health predictors and membership in a book club?
05.2021 | Kim Segel
Can IQ determine your quality of life
In a previous article the ubiquitous presence of online IQ testing was both noted and questioned. The obvious conclusions were that the validity of any findings are likely to be less than entirely accurate
04.2021 | Alistair Duff
The 4th Industrial Revolution Series: The Robots are NOT coming
When the short stocky man in the front row started to shout at me, I was horrified. He waved his hands as he growled in a deep voice. He blamed me for “this Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
04.2021 | Barry Dwolatzky
Wasteful saving and the curious case for negative interest rates
Oscar Wilde’s whimsical 1800’s quote “money was made to be spent, therefore, to save it is a waste of money” recently became true. This is the result of the growing global phenomenon of negative interest rates.
03.2021 | Jon Stilwell
Liespotting series:
A beginner’s guide to becoming a human lie
detecting machine
In a previous article we discussed the emergence of the study of lies. We discussed the heavy lifting scientific work done by Ekman and Matsumoto and the amazing contributions that they have made to our understanding of this science.
02.2021 | Alistair Duff
The weird world of quantum computers
The magician gazed out at his audience. “It’s a cold night,” he said. “Does anyone have a pair of gloves I can borrow?”
01.2021 | Barry Dwolatzky
Reward hacking: Moving beyond goal-driven behavior
At the risk of significantly over-simplifying the field, software development is achieved by articulating a certain goal or objective and mapping out a logical, algorithmically-based method of getting there.
11.2020 | Barry Morisse
Can mindfulness treat depression?
Psychiatrists are pragmatic people. There’s compassion and empathy, yes, but there’s also extreme firmness – especially when it comes to biopsychosocial treatment protocols for patients with depression.
07.2020 | Tiffany Markman
A cut and paste tool for human DNA
Genetic engineering is one of those fields of science that make people feel queasy.
07.2020 | RL Drake
Liespotting Series: Decoding the language of lies
Paul Ekman was named one Time Magazine’s Top 100 most influential people in May 2009.
06.2020 | Alistair Duff
Physics for the philosophical investor
A good share of modern physics is based on the laws of thermodynamics, which help us to understand how matter and energy relate to one another in closed systems, such as the universe.
06.2020 | Jon Stilwell
Will machines ever become conscious?
The nature of consciousness is something that has been debated for centuries by philosophers, neuroscientists, ethicists, biologists and the like, with very little progress having been made.
06.2020 | Barry Morisse
Just because I’m good at it, does not mean I like it.
Psychometric testing is the best known and most highly regarded method for measuring individuals’ mental capabilities and behavioral styles. Most commonly, psychometrics are used for career guidance and the evaluation of job suitability for a particular role based on personality characteristics and cognitive abilities.
04.2020 | Rachel Edelstein
The art of reading body language
“You talking to me? You talking to me?
Remember the young Robert de Niro’s famous line in Taxi Driver? Oh, the on-screen menace he conveyed physically,
03.2020 | Athalie Russell Besseling
AI Series: The impact of artificial intelligence on our work identity
The rise of advanced artificial intelligence is real and lurks on the horizon, requiring a significant shift in the way we view ourselves and our place in society.
01.2018 | Barry Morisse
AI Series: Can machines make ethical choices?
Once we start to see our ethics reflected back to us in the form of machine decision-making, are we going to like what we see?
01.2018 | Barry Morisse