An ocean research vessel has just discovered four underwater mountains, the tallest almost 3 kilometres high, that might be hotspots of deep-sea life | Continue reading
In its final experiments before being shut down for good last year, the UK's JET reactor set a world record for the energy output of a fusion reaction | Continue reading
In its final experiments before being shut down for good last year, the UK's JET reactor set a world record for the energy output of a fusion reaction | Continue reading
An eight-week virtual exercise programme improved the quality of life of people with long covid, but the effect was relatively modest and it may not benefit everyone with the condition | Continue reading
Researchers wanting to make use of locusts’ keen sense of smell to sniff out certain chemicals have found that injecting their brains with nanoparticles seems to make odour identification more reliable | Continue reading
The global average temperature in January 2024 was 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels for the month, meaning the planet has breached the 1.5°C benchmark for the past 12 months | Continue reading
A type of distant planet long thought to have water oceans on its surface may be too hot for liquid water, and magma oceans might be more likely | Continue reading
Nanoparticles designed to release antibiotics deep inside the lungs reduced inflammation and improved lung function in mice with symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease | Continue reading
Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon | Continue reading
For most of humanity’s existence, we have observed the universe using light, but these days photons aren’t the only game in town, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Continue reading
Feedback is excited to learn that the wrinkly rodents may be the keepers of anti-ageing intelligence | Continue reading
Hybrid working has its benefits, but employees will be happier and more productive with more face-to-face contact, says evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar | Continue reading
The compelling story of how Jacqueline Alnes fell under the spell of “fruit-only” diet influencers as she battled a mystery illness highlights how modern life makes us all vulnerable | Continue reading
According to data from Caribbean sponges, the world passed 1.5°C of warming a decade ago, but debating these arbitrary limits distracts from the bigger picture | Continue reading
February is a good time to spot two stunning constellations, both of which are named after figures from Greek mythology, says Abigail Beall | Continue reading
Mahalia Belo’s debut feature film, based on Megan Hunter’s story of how a new mother and baby survive in a seriously flooded London, allows room for more sensitivity than most climate movies | Continue reading
These stunning images are finalists in the World of Fungi category in the International Garden Photographer of the Year contest | Continue reading
In 1858, two ornithologists set out to find the great auk. Gísli Pálsson's intriguing account of their failed quest argues it may have shaped modern ideas about extinction and conservation | Continue reading
A group of more than a dozen orcas has disappeared after being trapped in freezing Japanese waters for about a day – it isn’t known if they escaped or have died | Continue reading
Close measurements of Mimas’s orbit suggest there could be an ocean 30 kilometres deep beneath the small moon’s icy exterior | Continue reading
Physicists’ search for a theory that explains all reality in one framework appeared to have stalled. But now they are reinvigorating the hunt by exploring a wild landscape of abstract geometry | Continue reading
A subspecies of the Somali sharp-snouted worm lizard was found by a landmine clearance team, the first official sighting since 1931 | Continue reading
In space, growing plants could be important for food, oxygen and even astronauts' psychological well-being – but growing anything beyond Earth is more difficult than it might seem | Continue reading
A Chinese company is building wind turbines with 131-metre-long blades, the longest ever used in an onshore power plant | Continue reading
Making a strange state of matter called a time crystal inside a quantum computer helped researchers stabilise a fragile quantum state inspired by Schrödinger’s cat | Continue reading
A severe drought exacerbated by climate change and a lack of updated infrastructure have led to some ships waiting more than a month to cross one of the world's most important waterways | Continue reading
Menstrual cycles change over time, but the menopause, and the time leading up to it, particularly alters their length and variability | Continue reading
A robot that can learn to open most types of doors, cabinets, drawers and refrigerators – without human direction – may pave the way for your future robot butler | Continue reading
From how well they work to side effects such as hair loss, here’s the skinny on new weight loss injections that work by blocking a hormone that normally reduces appetite | Continue reading
How exactly the placebo effect works is still a mystery, but neuroscientist Luana Colloca is working to find the answers in order to change the way we treat pain | Continue reading
An analysis of satellite observations has identified some extreme thunderstorms over the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Mexico with lightning flashes so frequent that the sky would appear continuously lit | Continue reading
A sample from the asteroid Bennu, brought back by the OSIRIS-REx mission, feature hints that it was once part of a planetesimal with conditions favourable for life to emerge | Continue reading
Researchers have recreated the hybridisation of two wild yeast species that led to the first lager yeasts, generating new varieties that could make beer with a range of new flavours | Continue reading
People with blue eyes may have better sight in dim conditions than those with brown eyes, which could explain why the colour has persisted in certain populations | Continue reading
A Greek philosopher’s musings on pleasure, contained in ancient papyrus scrolls buried by Mount Vesuvius’s eruption 2000 years ago, have been rediscovered with the help of AI | Continue reading
For decades we thought the Irish elk’s body size alone explained why it had enormous antlers, but the truth may be more complicated | Continue reading
Lightning strikes during volcanic eruptions could have provided nitrogen in a form that was needed by early life forms | Continue reading
Five storms in the past decade had wind speeds that belong in a hypothetical category 6 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale | Continue reading
The US National Ignition Facility has achieved even higher energy yields since breaking even for the first time in 2022, but a practical fusion reactor is still a long way off | Continue reading
Earth’s air temperature passed the agreed 1.5°C warming limit around 2010, according to measurements from the skeletons of sea sponges in the Caribbean, but some climate scientists aren't convinced | Continue reading
DNA sampling is revealing fungi thriving throughout the oceans, from hydrothermal vents to the open seas. They might even help tackle antibiotic resistance and clear up plastic pollution | Continue reading
There were 69 unprovoked shark attacks on people and 10 fatalities in 2023 worldwide, with four of the deaths occurring in Australia | Continue reading
As the US military begins integrating AI technology, simulated wargames show how chatbots behave unpredictably and risk nuclear escalation | Continue reading
Some people may experience "brain fog" during certain parts of their menstrual cycle, but new research finds that hormonal changes throughout this cycle have no effect on verbal or spatial skills | Continue reading
Hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle have previously been blamed for "brain fog", but new research finds they have no effect on verbal or spatial skills | Continue reading
Converting hundreds of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach into mathematical networks reveals that they store lots of information and convey it very effectively | Continue reading
Large proportions of users posting on Twitter – now X – about the Chinese balloon that drifted over the US and Canada in 2023 were bots attempting to shape the debate | Continue reading
Researchers studying fruit fly egg cells have discovered that they stir up the fluid inside them with a twister-like current | Continue reading