Four out of five emperor penguin colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea area suffered a total breeding failure in 2022 as a result of the record shrinking of sea ice | Continue reading
ChatGPT's responses to questions that were put to university students were as good as or better than the human answers in nine out of the 32 subjects tested | Continue reading
For just the second time, biologists have spotted a gentoo penguin with melanism, a genetic condition that results in unusually dark feathers | Continue reading
Some astrophysicists have said that the discovery of the gravitational wave background could shake the foundations of physics – why is it so momentous? | Continue reading
If bees can spot sugary rewards at a distance, it may mean that we need to re-evaluate experiments that assess their intelligence | Continue reading
Non-vaccine measures such as social distancing and wearing face masks have been "unequivocally effective" at preventing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, according to a major report by the UK's Royal Society | Continue reading
With more bears and wolves in Yellowstone National Park, cougars there appear to be shifting their hunting strategy to find and protect their kills | Continue reading
Supercapacitors are charged like a battery but release their energy more rapidly – and some of their components can now be built from old plastic bottles | Continue reading
Tsunamis trigger atmospheric disturbances that are picked up by GPS satellites – and an AI-powered monitoring system that detects the signals could alert us before the tsunami reaches coastal areas | Continue reading
Was this perfect circle with a central depression drawn by our ancestors in the sand, around 136,000 years ago? Palaeontologist Charles Helm certainly thinks so | Continue reading
In the climate-ravaged world set up by the puzzle game Viewfinder, you must go deep to find abandoned research that could save Earth. Success depends on cunning tricks with dimensions, says Jacob Aron | Continue reading
There is a belief that keeping houseplants in our bedrooms at night is dangerous because they compete with us for air, but in reality they have a negligible effect on the indoor atmosphere, says James Wong | Continue reading
Ignore the use of your digital data at your peril: today’s personal data businesses are profiling you in ways that could have a profound impact on your life | Continue reading
A teenage scuba diver has an hour to escape from a whale that has swallowed him before his air runs out in a novel by Daniel Kraus which is like nothing you have read before | Continue reading
Global warming isn't just affecting animals like polar bears and walruses. Action is also needed to save species such as African wild dogs, which are adapted to hot weather, warns Daniella Rabaiotti | Continue reading
Taxonomy is embroiled in its own version of the statues culture war, and the case for abandoning names such as Anophthalmus hitleri is strong, says Graham Lawton | Continue reading
Where does "father of genetics" Gregor Mendel fit in a post-genomic world? Gregory Radick has written an excellent reset | Continue reading
The way your data is stored and shared is changing and your online activity can be used to categorise you in ways that drastically alter your life. There are ways to take back control | Continue reading
The Y chromosome, which normally confers male characteristics, features large amounts of repetitive DNA, which meant it was difficult to compile a complete sequence until now | Continue reading
Satellite sensing reveals tropical forests are much closer to a major tipping point than previously thought, but are only likely to pass it in worst-case warming scenarios | Continue reading
AI research uses vast amounts of energy, but new research shows that analogue devices can run models far more efficiently due to their unusual ability to carry out data storage and processing in the same place | Continue reading
ISRO, India’s national space agency, has successfully made a historic soft landing near the moon's water-rich south pole, only days after Russia’s Luna 25 crashed on the lunar surface attempting a similar mission | Continue reading
ISRO, India’s national space agency, is attempting a historic soft landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission near the moon's water-rich south pole, only days after Russia’s Luna 25 crashed on the lunar surface | Continue reading
After noticing that some heart problems resolve during pregnancy, researchers have shown cells in the placenta can turn into functioning heart cells in the lab | Continue reading
A map of all chemicals that places compounds next to each other that have similar properties could speed up the process of discovery for everything from drugs to materials | Continue reading
A map of all chemicals that places compounds with similar properties next to each other could speed up the process of discovery for everything from drugs to materials | Continue reading
Antibodies from people who have had covid-19 or been vaccinated against it may give them partial protection against most other pathogens in the coronavirus family | Continue reading
Vagus nerve stimulation is used to treat conditions ranging from inflammation to migraine. Mapping the nerve's complex structure of more than 160,000 fibres could usher in a new era of precision treatments | Continue reading
Using spent coffee grounds to replace some of the sand in concrete makes the material stronger and could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coffee grounds in landfill | Continue reading
Tortoises and turtles accumulate uranium isotopes in their shells, which could provide a reliable record of historical nuclear activity | Continue reading
Usually, ground source heat pumps can only be installed in homes with plenty of land, but a UK company is rolling out shared networks for entire streets | Continue reading
From Walking with Dinosaurs to King Kong, palaeontologist David Hone chooses his favourite science fiction films about dinosaurs – and reveals which Jurassic Park made the cut | Continue reading
The high-powered chips required for training the most advanced artificial intelligences are in short supply, with big firms winning out over academics and activists | Continue reading
In the US, more adults between 35 and 50 years old are binge drinking than ever before, while rates have declined in younger age groups | Continue reading
We thought Earth's water cycle was resilient to human meddling, but new analysis shows our supplies of water in plants and soil that are critical to generating rainfall are dangerously low. Here is what we must do to repair the damage | Continue reading
Animals found around hydrothermal vents – from snails covered in metal plates to hairy crabs – have unusual adaptations to survive with no sunlight and extreme pressure | Continue reading
Certain prompts can encourage chatbots such as ChatGPT to ignore the rules that prevent illicit use, and they have been widely shared on social platforms | Continue reading
It has been almost 50 years since Russia - then the Soviet Union - landed safely on the moon. The crash of Luna 25 on the lunar surface means that won't change any time soon | Continue reading
You may never need to clean a toilet again, thanks to a new material that keeps the bowl free of any waste | Continue reading
An artificial intelligence from Google can predict floods even in regions with little data on water flow, and its predictions four days in advance are as accurate as conventional systems manage for the same day | Continue reading
A container ship on its way from South Korea to Denmark is using methanol fuel that reduces emissions – although future fuels may be greener | Continue reading
The difficulty of quantum error correction has been a major stumbling block for quantum computers, but IBM researchers have developed a way to make it far more efficient | Continue reading
Researchers have mapped how clusters of nerve cells in the brain connect to regulate wakefulness, which could open doors to new treatments for people in comas | Continue reading
Analysis of gene activity in a blood sample can help determine if a fever is caused by bacterial infection, a virus or an inflammatory disease | Continue reading
If a person says they believe an objectively false statement, AIs tend to agree with them – and the problem seems to get worse as models get bigger | Continue reading
An African bird called the greater honeyguide is said to lead honey badgers to beehives. Despite decades of reports, including faked footage, hard evidence has been tough to come by – but it’s more than just a myth | Continue reading
Thanks to the way human eyes work, a system that makes your phone screen blurry can prevent people reading it from a distance while still remaining legible up close | Continue reading
The award-winning author of The Shining Girls on how her 'magpie curiosity' about everything from neuroparasitology to music theory led to her multiverse novel Bridge, our latest Book Club pick | Continue reading