Viruses and bacteria floating in the air can be sorted for further analysis using magnets and the metal gadolinium | Continue reading
Doctors sometimes recommend older people take a low dose of aspirin to reduce their risk of the most common type of stroke, but a study suggests this is no more effective than a placebo and raises the risk of brain bleeds | Continue reading
Instead of coming earlier and earlier as the climate warms, the onset of spring in the Arctic is now extremely variable from year to year, bringing challenges to wildlife | Continue reading
Self-driving vehicles that struggle with recognising objects at night could get a boost from a heat-assisted detection and ranging system | Continue reading
An ant species in Australia makes honey that killed some bacterial and fungal infections in the lab, raising hopes that its properties could be used in new drugs | Continue reading
Fossils unearthed in Thailand have been identified as a new species of dinosaur that fed on plants and roamed the wilds of South-East Asia | Continue reading
Fork-tailed drongos produce individualised patterns on their eggs, which may help them recognise their own and reject 94 per cent of cuckoo eggs | Continue reading
The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted water vapour in an area where planets may be forming, which could present an answer to the debate over how Earth got its water | Continue reading
Wood is a versatile construction material that could be used to replace carbon-intensive steel and concrete in construction, however the emissions involved may have been underestimated | 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
Even with the capabilities they have today, the new generation of AIs will profoundly reshape the world, and your life, over the next decade. Here’s how | Continue reading
The large language models behind the new chatbots are trained to predict which words are most likely to appear together – but “emergent abilities” suggest they might be doing more than that | Continue reading
Amid warnings that advanced AI could wipe out humanity, some experts insist we should be more worried about people using existing AIs to supercharge the spread of misinformation | Continue reading
It sounds far-fetched, but researchers are trying to recreate subjective experience in AIs, even if disagreement over what consciousness is will make it difficult to test | Continue reading
From helping you to craft the perfect email to providing personal training and meal planning, a whole host of generative AI tools are here to streamline your daily grind | Continue reading
AI isn't just for chatbots – many companies are using it to tackle everything from protein folding and drug development to commercially viable nuclear fusion | Continue reading
A study warns that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is close to a tipping point that would severely disrupt the climate – but other researchers say the timing is impossible to predict | Continue reading
From 2001: A Space Odyssey to WALL-E, Erika Nesvold picks her favourite sci-fi films set in space (and explains why E.T. missed out) | Continue reading
Climate researchers thought that current sea levels were the highest in more than 100,000 years, but new models suggest oceans were higher during the Holocene than they are today | Continue reading
This mesmerising image of star V960 Mon spitting out gas jets to create arms larger than our entire solar system shows how massive planets may come together via gravitational instability | Continue reading
J. Robert Oppenheimer was instrumental in creating the first atomic bomb but afterwards spent decades campaigning against it. Christopher Nolan’s new film focuses on these later years | Continue reading
Wearing a hearing aid didn't reduce the rate of cognitive decline among a group of older people when compared with just receiving general health advice, but it did have an effect when the researchers focused on those who are particularly at risk of dementia | Continue reading
In the most detailed study yet of awareness during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, nearly half those who survived reported some kind of hazy memories, dreams or perceptions | Continue reading
Fibres from artificial grass make up 15 per cent of plastic pieces found in samples of seawater near Barcelona | Continue reading
Climate change made the heatwaves in North America and Europe at least 1000 times more likely and the heatwave in China around 50 times more likely | Continue reading
The AI that powers ChatGPT appears to be performing less well at mathematical problems than it was just a few months ago | Continue reading
Experiments show that people consistently underestimate the weight of their own hands – a perceptual quirk that could be important for designing prosthetics | Continue reading
Small studies suggest that psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, may reduce the severity of eating disorders and increase people’s motivation to recover from the condition | Continue reading
Concerns over chemical sunscreens harming coral reefs and maybe even our health are inspiring a new generation of sun lotions that would offer greater protection that endures | Continue reading
Plant-based milks made from almonds, oats, rice and soya beans generally contain fewer nutrients than cow's milk | Continue reading
A study of more than 700,000 people found that adopting eight healthy habits by age 40 could extend life expectancy by more than two decades | Continue reading
Elon Musk is once more plunging Twitter into turmoil, this time by changing its very identity | Continue reading
We don't yet know how strong the developing El Niño climate pattern will be, but even a weak one risks severe global disruption | Continue reading
Jackal flies usually feed on dead bees, but a South African plant entices them by smelling like bee blood and producing a nutritious fluid | Continue reading
A 33-million-year-old layer of Earth's crust is laced with helium-3, which is normally only found in space. Now we might have an explanation for how it got there | Continue reading
Nearly 500 regions of the human genome appear to directly impact your dietary intake by affecting perception of flavours and food preferences | Continue reading
Fruits and vegetables contain prebiotics, which act as a food source for gut microbes and may boost overall health | Continue reading
Remnants of eight spices were found on a sandstone slab from an archaeological site in Vietnam, showing the early adoption of ingredients and techniques from south Asia | Continue reading
James Ball’s clever take on conspiracy theories is to see them as public health emergencies. But will it really help us fight the likes of QAnon? | Continue reading
The Viking 1 and 2 Mars probes looked for evidence of quakes on Mars, but failed to find anything definitive. Now a reanalysis suggests Viking 2 found marsquakes after all | Continue reading
After watching deepfake movie clips that inserted Will Smith into The Matrix or put Chris Pratt in the role of Indiana Jones, 70 per cent of people thought the movie remakes actually existed | Continue reading
It is vital that we clean up our energy sources and shift away from fossil fuels, but rising interest rates mean green energy projects are becoming more expensive and risk being cancelled | Continue reading
Newton’s first law of motion says that particles move in straight lines unless influenced by a force but a new experiment shows that the quantum version of that assumption fails for quantum particles of light | Continue reading
Over 99 per cent of green turtles born on beaches in the northern Great Barrier Reef are now female due to nest overheating, but cooling their nests with seawater may help to rebalance the sex ratio | Continue reading
An analysis of GPS data has revealed a slow and otherwise undetectable slip of tectonic plates that begins two hours before an earthquake - but detecting this in advance would require more accurate sensors | Continue reading
Chemicals containing fluorine that are used in pharmaceuticals, fertilisers and batteries can now be made without the release of toxic hydrogen fluoride gas as part of the process | Continue reading
A tiny probe that can be moved deep into the brain via blood vessels could one day monitor brain activity in people with epilepsy or Parkinson's disease | Continue reading
Even if the planet doesn't get any warmer than it is now, melting ice in Greenland could add at least 1.5 metres to the global average sea level and possibly as much as 5 metres | Continue reading