Talk of machines taking over the planet is the stuff of science fiction but if world domination was just a simple numbers game, some machines have already “taken over” from their human masters.

One of the great things about logic is there are so many different flavours to choose from. If you thought that logic came in just one flavour (vanilla), then think again.

Here is an experiment to investigate dependence on your “digital dummy”. A digital dummy is any computer, smartphone or other digital device on which you suckle data like a baby. What you need to do is: Delete all your so-called “social networks” on LinkedIn, Facebook etc.

What do the following people have in common? Lady Gaga Michael Gove Dilma Rousseff Prince William Mark Zuckerberg Colin Firth Sayeeda Warsi If you think you know, leave a comment below.

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) has an interesting series of video lectures from “the world’s most inspiring thinkers”. If you haven’t seen them already, they’re worth watching not just for their stimulating content but for the beautifully produced hand-drawn animations.

As Tom Lehrer once sang on his christmas carol: Which must mean it’s also time for another seasonal tradition: the Royal Institution Christmas lectures.

Whatever your views on Facebook [1], you can’t deny that from space, “Planet Facebook” looks rather intriguing. The wonderful diagram below of Facebook connections has been made by Paul Butler.

Of all the things you can do with a Science degree, being paid money to stargaze from the top of a volcano in Hawaiʻi has to be one of the more interesting.

If you took an infinite number of Professors, added some comedians, recording studios (instead of typewriters) and got them to record random radio shows you might just end up with a program like the Infinite Monkey Cage.

There are at least two ways of looking at the history of Science: If we have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. If we have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of tyrants. Take Isaac Newton for example, a giant whose shoulders we all stand on today.

Freakonomics and its successor Superfreakonomics are two books by the economist Steven Levitt and his partner in crime Stephen Dubner that have a common theme running through them (quote): “People respond to incentives, although not necessarily in ways that are predictable and manifest.