The prettier the bird, the worse it sings. A study of over 500 species has revealed that birds evolve to attract mates in one of two ways, and don’t combine them | Continue reading
Hellbenders, vampire finches, and mud-daubers were among animals depicted in winning photographs in the 2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition | Continue reading
Mice are more active and have attention problems if their fathers had nicotine in their diet, perhaps because the chemical triggers epigenetic changes in sperm | Continue reading
Some say the astronomical term moonmoon makes light of a serious field of study, but it seems a shame to abandon it for po-faced alternatives | Continue reading
Reports that 2018’s blockbuster video game saw people working 100-hour weeks are troubling, given that tech firms could make workers’ lives easier, says Michael Cook | Continue reading
Medical cannabis is to be available in the UK from November, but tight restrictions will drive patients to alternative sources, says Henry Fisher | Continue reading
Researchers have calculated that living organisms may be able to hitch a ride aboard interstellar rocks to spread not only between planets, but across the galaxy | Continue reading
Wonder about the natural world and an extraordinary depth of ecological insight combine to create a profound, urgent novel tipped to take the £50,000 Man Booker prize | Continue reading
A coalition of major global figures say we must do much more to adapt to our rapidly warming world, and we need to do it fast | Continue reading
An 'unlimited chewing gum' uses an electric charge to trick you into experiencing flavours – and they don’t fade in the way chewing gum flavour usually does | Continue reading
The first fast radio burst to be detected in a nearby galaxy may provide clues about what – or who – is able to transmit these strange, powerful signals | Continue reading
A survey has found that teenagers get into more fights in countries where it is legal to spank children, but there could be several explanations for the link | Continue reading
Chemical evidence locked in rocks and oil suggests that the first animals were alive 100 million years earlier than we thought from fossils | Continue reading
Predictions of beer shortages and rocketing prices as extreme weather hits barley production should not be taken too literally but do highlight a very real problem | Continue reading
Brown hares are turning up dead across the UK, raising fears that myxomatosis – the rabbit infection in ‘Watership Down’ - may have mutated to target hares | Continue reading
Mice and men share about 97.5% of their genes, suggests new research – previous estimates were just 85% | Continue reading
Folic acid helps prevent birth defects but is most effective taken around the time of conception. Adding it to wheat could benefit unplanned pregnancies | Continue reading
The first fast radio burst to be detected in a nearby galaxy may provide clues about what – or who – is able to transmit these strange, powerful signals | Continue reading
The Stanford prison experiment was the classic demonstration of how power can bring out the worst in us. But now it seems it was more about showbiz than science | Continue reading
Prehistoric humans were sexual adventurers, mating with Neanderthals and Denisovans, but DNA studies reveal dalliances with populations we never knew existed | Continue reading
A reimagining of a classic 1930s novel by Karel Capek cleverly immerses us in a terrifying future where a new intelligent species is cruelly exploited | Continue reading
Forget doomy "Anthropocene" ideas, if we're serious about saving Earth we need hope, says Tomás Saraceno, the artist whose tetrahedral balloons inspire researchers | Continue reading
China, Japan and the US are racing to build the first exascale computer – but devising programmes clever enough to run on them is a different story | Continue reading
More often associated with artistic experiments and the innards of satellites, light-absorbing Vantablack paint may soon be heading to an arcade near you | Continue reading
A tiny Chinese satellite in lunar orbit is designed to accept commands from amateurs, and has captured a new view of the Earth and its moon | Continue reading
Vast tracts of land are returning to wilderness as farming retreats worldwide. But rewilding isn't an easy win – and debates rage about how to manage it | Continue reading
If we attach tiny magnets to fast-swimming algae, we can load them up with drugs and steer them deep into the human body to deliver targeted medical therapies | Continue reading
A gigantic fungus that lives under the ground in a Michigan forest is even larger than initially estimated and may have been around for at least 2500 years | Continue reading
The US Marines are developing a laser weapon that can shout at people from 100 metres away. It can also be turned up to deafen, dazzle or cause painful burns | Continue reading
Simulated robots can learn to control their bodies in many creative ways, and now they can also build the best limbs for crossing through an obstacle course | Continue reading
When mice are given a high-fat diet their great grandchildren are more likely to put on weight – and they show a greater than expected taste for alcohol | Continue reading
Consumer genetic databases are becoming powerful tools for identifying criminals, and a new technique could link you to forensic data held by US police | Continue reading
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft has crash landed after an attempted launch to the International Space Station, which may throw a wrench in space flight plans | Continue reading
China, Japan and the US are racing to build the first exascale computer – but devising programmes clever enough to run on them is a different story | Continue reading
Simulated robots can learn to control their bodies in many creative ways, and now they can also build the best limbs for crossing through an obstacle course | Continue reading
Peer into nature with these amazing images from the Nikon Small World microphotography prize. They include a bug bubble house and the eye of a weevil | Continue reading
Carnivorous dinosaurs generated seismic waves with every footfall – but because of the shape of their feet they may have masked their presence approaching prey | Continue reading
The UK Home Secretary has announced that doctors will be able to prescribe medicinal cannabis from next month following a specially commissioned review | Continue reading
Thanks to clever chemistry and innovative engineering, the cities of the future are being fashioned from cleaner, greener concrete | Continue reading
Keeping warming to a manageable (but still dangerous) 1.5°C is possible, strictly speaking, but it will be the largest project humanity has ever undertaken | Continue reading
There is so little food in the mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that individual microbes living there use just 0.00000000001 joules of energy each year | Continue reading
A rocket carrying two people to the International Space Station has just made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after a booster malfunctioned | Continue reading
A rocket carrying two people to the International Space Station has just made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after a booster malfunctioned | Continue reading
Countries need to start a massive programme of retrofitting old homes to make them carbon neutral if the world is to meet the global emission reduction target | Continue reading
If a moon is big enough and far enough from its planet, it can host its own smaller moon, called a ‘moonmoon’ - and four worlds in our solar system fit the bill | Continue reading
Step inside the hospital of the future, where face recognition tracks everyone who enters and robots roam the corridors | Continue reading
This week is Baby Loss Awareness Week, but more must be done to help those who, like me, have suffered a loss, says Petra Boynton | Continue reading
Advances in artificial intelligence could lead to massive growth in energy use as smart machines push into every corner of our lives | Continue reading