DNA analysis suggests Pando, a quaking aspen in Utah with thousands of stems connected by their roots, is between 16,000 and 81,000 years old | Continue reading
Just under 5 per cent of the Wikipedia pages in English that have been published since ChatGPT's release seem to include AI-written content | Continue reading
Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical imaging, cooling systems and even nuclear reactors | Continue reading
From Harlan Ellison to Haruki Murakami, via an intergalactic cooking competition, this month has plenty of science fictional treats on offer | Continue reading
In support of their AI ambitions, tech companies are rapidly expanding US data centres, and this growth is on track to significantly increase US gas demand by 2030 | Continue reading
People conceived during the UK's 1940s and 50s sugar rationing have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure than those conceived after rationing ended | Continue reading
Fewer lakes are freezing over each winter compared with past years, posing environmental and economic consequences around the world | Continue reading
Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have revealed that a complete skeleton found in a 2nd-century cemetery is made up of bones from many people spanning thousands of years – but we don’t know who assembled it or why | Continue reading
Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have revealed that a complete skeleton found in a 2nd-century cemetery is made up of bones from many people spanning thousands of years – but we don’t know who assembled it or why | Continue reading
An off-the-shelf millimetre wave sensor can pick out the tiny vibrations made by a smartphone's speaker, enabling an AI model to transcribe the conversation, even at a distance in a noisy room | Continue reading
The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that illiterate primates could write great literature with enough time, but the amount of time needed is much longer than the lifespan of the universe | Continue reading
The US Census Bureau processes data before publishing it in order to keep personal information private – but a new approach could maintain the same privacy while improving accuracy | Continue reading
The US Census Bureau processes data before publishing it in order to keep personal information private – but a new approach could maintain the same privacy while improving accuracy | Continue reading
The Renaissance artist Michelangelo had carried out human dissections, which may have led him to include women with breast cancer in some of his pieces | Continue reading
Our metabolism's response to food is highly idiosyncratic and there are hints that tailoring our diet to these personal differences can deliver health benefits | Continue reading
Scientists used AI to transform tourist photos into a 3D digital map of Antarctic penguin colonies – even as researchers debate whether to harness or discourage tourism in this remote region | Continue reading
Orca – Black & White Gold digs deep into the dirty waters surrounding the killer whale trade and captures a daring rescue mission | Continue reading
A new study amplifies the horror of an excellent series about the doomed Franklin expedition. The Terror is a worthy tribute to the lost sailors, says Bethan Ackerley | Continue reading
Running, swimming, HIIT or walking – what is the best way to work out? The answer is complicated, and depends on the person, finds Grace Wade | Continue reading
Thanks to artificial intelligence, understanding animals may be closer than we think. But we may not like what they are going to tell us, says RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood | Continue reading
Feedback digs into a baffling ad for a mobile game and identifies a new and devilish way to advertise a product online: make it as confusing as possible to encourage people to click (it worked on Feedback) | Continue reading
I have a confession to make. After taking a handful of autonomous taxi rides, I have gone from a hater to a friend of robot cars in just a few weeks, says Annalee Newitz | Continue reading
Endurance sank beneath the ice during Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Antarctic expedition. More than a hundred years later, researchers document their own saga of how they found the vessel | Continue reading
From the benefits of fermented foods to diets that promise a better hormone balance, there is a confusing array of dietary advice out there | Continue reading
Forget Armageddon-sized rocks, just one of 25,000 smaller asteroids could destroy a city on Earth. How to Kill an Asteroid by Robin George Andrew shows how science plans to save the planet | Continue reading
Most ingredients touted as the key to better health fail to live up to the hype but fibre bucks this trend, with benefits for the whole body, not just the gut | Continue reading
A fossil of a tadpole from Argentina is 161 million years old - and isn't that different from some modern species | Continue reading
A massive undertaking to map cancer tumours is providing new insights into how the disease forms, evolves and develops resistance to treatments | Continue reading
The health benefits of fermented food and drink have long been touted, but firm evidence in favour of kombucha, sauerkraut and kefir is surprisingly elusive | Continue reading
Diets that claim to control excess oestrogen or stress hormones are all the rage on Instagram and TikTok. They could be good for us, just not for the reasons claimed | Continue reading
Simulations suggest that when a quantum battery shares a quantum state with the device it is powering, the device can gain more charge than was stored in the battery to begin with | Continue reading
Simulations suggest that when a quantum battery shares a quantum state with the device it is powering, the device can gain more charge than was stored in the battery to begin with | Continue reading
In some recent years, the Amazon biome released more carbon than it absorbed, and further degradation could make it a permanent shift | Continue reading
Asteroids that regularly fly between Earth, Venus and Mars could provide radiation shielding for human missions to explore neighbouring planets | Continue reading
We get about a quarter of our calories from snacks and new research shows that this isn't necessarily bad for us. Done right, snacking can boost our health | Continue reading
Antibiotics can reduce diversity in the gut microbiome, raising the risk of infections that cause diarrhoea - and the effects may last years | Continue reading
Recent research shows that anti-inflammatory diets are not as faddish as they might sound, with the power to reduce the risk of heart attacks and some cancers | Continue reading
A specialised algorithm could help autonomous vehicles track hidden objects, such as a pedestrian, a bicycle or another vehicle concealed behind a parked car | Continue reading
Peaks in appetite and metabolism driven by our body's inbuilt clocks mean that eating at the wrong time can have consequences for our health and waistline | Continue reading
China's carbon emissions may have peaked in 2023, as figures suggest its output has plateaued so far in 2024 | Continue reading
A typically fragile quantum superposition has been made to last exceptionally long, and could eventually be used as a probe for discovering new physics | Continue reading
Computer simulations of how influenza A moves through human mucus found it is ideally configured to slide through the sticky stuff on its way to infecting cells | Continue reading
Computer simulations of how Influenza A moves through human mucous found it is ideally configured to slide through the sticky stuff on its way to infecting cells | Continue reading
In 2022, countries pledged to halt biodiversity loss by protecting 30 per cent of the planet by 2030, but progress has been too slow thus far | Continue reading
An outlandish experiment searching for a brain network that tunes up and down the feeling of immersion is hoping to unlock the therapeutic effects of psychedelics | Continue reading
In a small study, women experienced more empathy for strangers who were experiencing pain after an eight-week meditation training programme | Continue reading
In a small study, women experienced more empathy for strangers who were experiencing pain after an eight-week meditation training programme | Continue reading
Single-celled organisms called archaea can become multicellular when compressed, highlighting the role of physical forces in evolution | Continue reading