Fears are growing that seismic activity known as frost quakes or ice quakes – which can cause huge cracks in roads and houses – are becoming more frequent because of climate change | Continue reading
What looks like a production line in a UK scrapyard is actually taking cars apart rather than building them – part of efforts to create a more sustainable car industry | Continue reading
The second series of this show about Earth 66 million years ago is a joy to watch - but it inspires more than it informs. A little more science would have been nice | Continue reading
Children aged 6 to 9 are more likely than adults to save the life of a dog, pig or chimpanzee over a person in a hypothetical “trolley problem” scenario | Continue reading
Stimulating nerves on the back of your hand makes it feel like you are grasping things in VR without needing to have your palms covered in material | Continue reading
The huge Starship rocket made its first launch attempt on 20 April, but blew up shortly after – while the mission wasn’t a complete failure, it might be a while before we see it try to get to space again | Continue reading
Cool and comfortable mosquito-proof clothing could become available thanks to fabrics with special knits that the insects cannot penetrate | Continue reading
Transmission towers emit electromagnetic fields that can disrupt honeybees’ ability to pollinate nearby plants, which could reduce biodiversity in these areas | Continue reading
Comparing the properties of qubits in different quantum computers is challenging, but AI can tell them apart even when the state of the qubits is 98 per cent similar | Continue reading
We have long known that parasitic worm infections are associated with lower rates of several conditions. Now, research in mice reveals how the worms elicit these protections | Continue reading
Researchers have predicted how well eight countries will do in the Eurovision Song Contest based on the physiological responses of 60 volunteers while they watched the performances | Continue reading
While Google and other tech giants are rolling out new AI products at speed, the European Union is working on a law to restrict them | Continue reading
Simulations show planets that jockey for position around their star and appear to bounce off each other could survive in stable configurations - but it is unclear if they could occur naturally | Continue reading
Genetic studies suggest that high levels of vitamin D are linked with lower risk of various auto-immune diseases including the skin condition psoriasis and multiple sclerosis | Continue reading
The most powerful explosion ever seen seems to come from a supermassive black hole devouring a colossal cloud of gas, blasting out enormous amounts of energy as it eats | Continue reading
Solar-powered balloons floating 20 kilometres above ground have recorded inaudible low-frequency signals that have so far not been traced back to any known source | Continue reading
The two main methods of measuring the expansion of the universe have always disagreed, and observations of a supernova found in 2014 have thrown another wrench in the works | Continue reading
Even for cold-blooded sharks, the deep ocean is frigid. To tolerate low temperatures as they dive for deep-water squid, scalloped hammerheads close their gills | Continue reading
Butterflies with larger wingspans may be more likely to expand their range at high latitudes because they can fly to new habitats as temperatures rise | Continue reading
Phosphoric acid – found in sodas like cola – may open up the sodium channels on our tongue, allowing us to better taste salty flavours | Continue reading
From perception and behaviour to choice and morality, psychologist Paul Bloom’s book on the mind takes us on a comprehensive journey of what it means to be human | Continue reading
Faeces from baby kangaroos helped slash the amount of methane produced by bacteria in an artificial cow stomach | Continue reading
A soft robot inserted through a hole in the skull can deploy six sensor-filled legs on the surface of the brain to monitor electrical activity. The design has been tested in miniature pigs and could someday help people who experience epileptic seizures | Continue reading
Businesses are increasingly feeling hard done by when it comes to artificial intelligence exploiting their data. It is time we figured out who is going to foot the bill | Continue reading
Hostility, scepticism and general disquiet towards artificial intelligence run through two new sci-fi shows, Mrs. Davis and Class of '09, but they have very different styles | Continue reading
Unrealistic fantasies of the apocalypse are everywhere, but focusing on a potentially disastrous future stops us from making solid plans, says Annalee Newitz | Continue reading
From Whovians to Swifties, pop culture fandoms can have a dubious reputation, but social psychology shows that being part of a group can be immensely enriching, says Michael Bond | Continue reading
Pete Burford, who only took up macro photography two years ago, has won the Insect Week Photography Competition 2022 for this stunning close-up shot | Continue reading
Predictive processing is sometimes called a grand unifying theory of the brain. An important guide to the field from Andy Clark shows the idea’s strength – but also how far it has to go to fulfil that | Continue reading
Dystopias are everywhere on TV, but for every gem there is one to forget. A new offering, Silo, starts from a great premise about a society forced to live underground, but does it really deliver, asks Bethan Ackerley | Continue reading
It is a long-held idea that midday watering will scorch plants' foliage and damage their health – but this isn’t supported by the evidence, says James Wong | Continue reading
Astronomers are still discovering new natural satellites of Saturn and Jupiter, with the latest update seeing Saturn claim the crown for the solar system's most moons | Continue reading
A sequence for the human genome was first published in 2001, but this original reference doesn't reflect the full genetic diversity of humanity - something a new "pangenome" attempts to solve | Continue reading
Better understanding the ingredients in personal care products that ward off the insects may lead to more effective mosquito repellents | Continue reading
A Bell test can confirm whether two systems are truly entangled – it has now been used to confirm entanglement between qubits in a superconducting circuits | Continue reading
A new understanding of nutrition and how our bodies use calories from food explains why balancing diet and exercise is much more complicated than you might think | Continue reading
Getting older is a fact of life, but there are promising signs that we may be able to intervene to slow – and possibly even stop – the molecular processes that lead to numerous age-related conditions | Continue reading
In the search for a theory that unites general relativity and quantum physics, many have tried to rethink space-time. But what if space-time emerges naturally, like a hologram? | Continue reading
The key to solving the hard problem of consciousness could lie in the body not the brain, with our gut and heart being key players in building our conscious experience | Continue reading
A better understanding of emergent phenomena like the wetness of water, where the properties of a system can't be explained by those of its constituent parts, could unravel some big mysteries | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence systems will do what you ask but not necessarily what you meant. The challenge is to make sure they act in line with human’s complex, nuanced values | Continue reading
Making a wormhole that a human could theoretically travel through would require an upside-down universe and negative energy | Continue reading
Evidence-based tweaks to the way you think about your day are the secret of how to be happy over the course of your life | Continue reading
Longtermism is an increasingly influential branch of moral philosophy. At its most extreme, it can justify ignoring problems like homelessness and climate change – but other versions are available | Continue reading
So-called virtual particles aren't particles at all. Some argue that they are merely mathematical figments, and that we need to find a better way to understand particle interactions | Continue reading
To explain how life on Earth began, the big challenge is to identify the molecules and processes that enable non-living chemical systems to become more complex | Continue reading
The symmetries of matter are deeper and stranger than they first appear, and they have driven many of the biggest breakthroughs in particle physics. But have we exhausted their usefulness? | Continue reading
The neat picture we once had about the causes of mental illness has turned out to be wrong, but we are building an understanding of a new single underlying factor | Continue reading