On average, happiness declines as we approach middle age, bottoming out in our 40s but then picking back up as we head into retirement, according to a number of studies. This so-called U-shaped curve of happiness is reassuring but, unfortunately, probably not true.

I arrived to Kolymbari, a nice seaside resort on the western coast of the Greek island of Crete, late yesterday night, and am now already immersed in the morning session of the XI edition of the International Conference on New Frontiers in Physics. This event, which takes place at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Kolymbari since 2012, takes a rather broad view on advances in both experimental results and theory of fundamental physics.

Scientists know very little about the matter that makes up the galaxies in the Universe. About 20% of the matter in galaxies is visible or baryonic: subatomic particles like protons, neutrons and electrons. The other 80%, referred to as “dark matter”, remains mysterious and unseen.

In fact, it may not exist at all. “Dark matter” is just a hypothesis. Physicists and astronomers may be chasing a phantom – but that doesn’t stop us from looking. Why? Because if dark matter isn’t real, then the behaviour of the stars, planets and galaxies makes little sense.

The teen years are a challenging time for people transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, especially if they have mental health issues.

The online posting, sending or sharing of hurtful content is like being trapped in a small town, except possibly the whole world sees it. So why would someone do it to themselves?

That's the puzzle of digital self-harm. Like older forms of self-harm (cutting, burning, hitting oneself), there is worry it will lead suicidal ideation and attempts, but since peers assume a third-party is the culprit, the dysphoric or abnormal reasons to post cruel, embarrassing or threatening content about themselves is compounded.

Not all that much to do with Hank’s recent blog about the Galileo document that isn’t, but a note about how Einstein could be somewhat “pig-headed”, similar misunderstandings and new developments in contemporary fundamental physics.

It is common today to have food, or even a feast, to memorialize the dead. It is a legacy from ancient times.

Across the Roman Empire, funerary rituals were conducted to ensure the protection of deities and the memory of the deceased.  They were required by law.

Many of us enjoy a drink at the end of a stressful day. But for some, this is less of a discretionary treat and more of a nightly must-have.

While alcohol reduction campaigns ask us to check our relationship with alcohol, emphasising the role it can play in causing violence and disease, our research has found many Australian women view alcohol in a different way. Many don’t see alcohol as only a bad thing and have complex reasons for their relationships with alcohol.

We conducted 50 interviews with midlife women (45–64 years of age) from different social classes living in South Australia. All women had a relationship with alcohol but the nature of the relationship was really different according to their social class.

A launch window – the period during which a rocket must be launched to reach its destination – opens on August 29 for the first flight to the Moon since 1972 by a spacecraft designed to carry humans there. If all goes well, the Artemis project will be on track to meet its goal of putting humans back on the Moon in 2025.

The standing desk fad, and disastrous future outcomes for those who followed it, happened because epidemiologists correlated sitting and 'higher risk' of death. Obviously there is a 100 percent chance of dying but correlation looks for rows of behaviors, like eating cilantro or skydiving, and disease outcomes. Find enough correlation and you can declare statistical significance. Unfortunately, you can even do that with coin flips to show coins are prejudiced against landing on heads. Or tails.

In over 15 years of blogging, in this and previous sites, I have mostly stayed away from the topic of climate change, the environmental catastrophe we are creating with our "perennial growth" myths and our disdain of our planet and the other species that inhabit it, and the continuous slaughter of over a billion animals every year for our unnecessarily opulent lunch tables.