On the news this week: Portion size guide; first ever photos of a black hole; and smartphone app for diagnosing rare genetic disorders.

It’s been a very challenging year for Einstein: first the neutrino saga threatened his postulated upper limit to the speed of light, and now astronomers hope to use the Earth-sized Event Horizon Telescope to peer into the very heart of our galaxy and make the first ever observations of a supermassive black hole, again testing […]

Earth-engulfing black holes, continent-crushing asteroids, crop-cremating supernovae. Sounds like science-fiction, or at worst the rant of a lunatic – and largely you’d be right. Not that these things don’t happen, it’s just that they’re extraordinarily rare and you’re probably better off minding that car screeching past you than worrying about our collective planetary plight; after […]