The Conversation

Spider-Man's breakfasts must be unreal levels of eggs. warriorpoetBy Mark Lorch, University of HullWhile stuck in a hotel room I got sucked into watching the 2002 "Spider-Man" movie. And it struck me that Peter Parker must have an enormously high-protein diet to generate all that spider silk he goes through. So being the geek that I am, I wondered what his protein consumption has to be to sustain his villain-beating lifestyle.

Wise advice. Julia Wolf, CC BY-NC-SABy Arun Vishwanath, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Climate scientists will be either ineffectual or counter-productive if they testify before Congress. EPABy Mathis Hampel, University of East AngliaWestern liberal democracies believe that in difficult political decisions science serves as a referee and arbiter of truth.

Who's really driving your car? Saad Faruque, CC BY-SABy Andrew Smith, The Open University and Blaine Price, The Open University

Opposing this law change is not anti-feminist. shutterstockBy Pam Lowe, Aston UniversityA campaign is underway in the United Kingdom to make it illegal to abort a child based on its gender. Proponents say they are worried about women being coerced into terminating female fetuses and that action needs to be taken to stop discrimination against baby girls.

Time-dependent Maxwell's equations in media By Robyn Arianrhod, Monash UniversityIt’s hard to imagine life without mobile phones, radio and television. Yet the discovery of the electromagnetic waves that underpin such technologies grew out of an abstract theory that’s 150 years old.

There are up to 400 chemical compounds on human skin that could play a role in attracting mosquitoes. sookie, CC BY-SABy Cameron Webb, University of SydneyThere’s always one in a crowd, a sort of harbinger of the oncoming mosquito onslaught: a person mosquitoes seem to target more than others. What is it about these unlucky chosen few that makes them mosquito magnets?

Looks healthy, but still lacks the big predatory fish... how would it rate on the Promonitor Index? AF Johnson, CC BY-NC-SABy Andrew Frederick Johnson, University of California, San Diego

By Anton Wallner, Australian National UniversityOur understanding of heavy element production in supernovae, exploding stars way beyond our solar system, may need to change following some discoveries we have made looking not to the skies, but deep under our oceans.Supernova explosions are one of the most violent events in our galaxy and are thought to produce elements essential for life such as iron and iodine but also some of the heaviest elements existing in nature.When a star goes supernova and explodes, these heavy elements are thrown out into space as dust and debris.