Condensed matter is a huge field of physics that gets less attention than it deserves. We must show people its subtle magic if we are to draw in a diverse set of researchers for the next generation, says Felix Flicker | Continue reading
A 2021 paper has got physicists discussing whether our inability to use classical physics to describe reality on a quantum scale is a human failing - and what proof is necessary to show that the world really is quantum mechanical, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Continue reading
The pioneering work of Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian, who trained in the late 19th century, is finally brought into conversation at the Tate Modern in London | Continue reading
Carl Woods's moving documentary My Everest tells the story of Max Stainton-Parfitt, who has cerebral palsy, and his epic expedition to Everest South Base Camp | Continue reading
One in five cars sold worldwide in 2023 will be electric, but a mass shift away from the internal combustion engine will bring its own problems | Continue reading
An image of a black hole called M87* shows never-before-seen details of matter falling into its centre and a jet shooting out of it, which has given astronomers a better understanding of the dynamics around this behemoth | Continue reading
Ultra-processed foods contain artificial ingredients that impact our health in ways that we are only just beginning to understand, says Chris van Tulleken | Continue reading
Preserving ‘carbon crops’ with salt and storing them in dry landfill sites to stop them decomposing could be a low-cost, scalable climate solution, according to physicist Eli Yablonovitch | Continue reading
An experimental update to Ethereum, the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency, has led to a dramatic reduction in the energy used to secure the currency and verify transactions | Continue reading
Millimetre-sized robots made of iron oxide and packed with yeast speed up fermentation of beer by swimming around in the fermenting container and can be removed with a magnet, eliminating the need for filtering out yeast | Continue reading
By covering themselves in resin from spinifex grass, Australian assassin bugs improve their chances of catching flies and ants, in a rare case of tool use in insects | Continue reading
Twenty years of wildfires have cut down habitats and prey crucial to lynx in the north-west US, slashing the maximum number of cats that the region can support by up to 73 per cent | Continue reading
A lunar lander from Japanese company ispace attempted to become the first craft from a private firm to touch down safely on the surface of the moon – but it lost communications just before landing | Continue reading
In the UK, 97 per cent of rivers have been modified, blocked and otherwise corralled to suit our needs - with enormous damage to wildlife. Here’s how we can reverse the damage we’ve done | Continue reading
It is widely thought that Rosalind Franklin was a victim whose work on DNA was stolen, but a letter and unpublished magazine story add to the evidence that this view is misleading | Continue reading
An analysis of melatonin gummies sold in the US showed that the majority were inaccurately labelled, containing up to 347 per cent the amount of the hormone listed on labels | Continue reading
The Asahi illusion tricks us into believing it is brighter than it really is, to the extent that our pupils constrict. Now it seems the illusion also works on rats | Continue reading
The Hakuto-R lander from Japanese firm ispace is due to touch down on the surface of the moon at 4:40pm BST today | Continue reading
The Hakuto-R lander from Japanese company ispace could become the first craft from a private firm to touch down safely on the surface of the moon – watch it live from 4pm BST | Continue reading
Researchers are working on edible computer chips to control robots that can operate inside the human body to precisely deliver drugs before safely being digested | Continue reading
The James Webb Space Telescope has found the most distant galaxy cluster ever seen, at 30 billion light years away. Researchers say it’s probably one of the biggest clusters in the universe by now | Continue reading
An electrochemical transistor made from balsa wood opens up the possibility of embedding sensors and other electronic devices in plants, which could help in agriculture and forest management | Continue reading
Brain scans show adolescents with more psychiatric symptoms have undergone less “pruning”, when unneeded synaptic connections between neurons disappear | Continue reading
More than 100 charged calcium atoms chilled to extremely low temperatures have been arranged into a two-dimensional crystal, which could be used for studying quantum materials or building quantum computations | Continue reading
If we could detect them, cosmic neutrinos would paint a picture of the universe in the instant after it began. Physicist Martin Bauer has come up with plan to do just that | Continue reading
If we could detect them, cosmic neutrinos would paint a picture of the universe in the instant after it began. Physicist Martin Bauer has come up with a plan to do just that | Continue reading
The Hope orbiter got closer to Mars’s moons Deimos and Phobos than any probe before, collecting unprecedented images and data that hints at the moons’ true origins | Continue reading
A longer small intestine may improve the absorption of nutrients from our food, which may be required more during pregnancy or while breastfeeding | Continue reading
A material made from a protein in the silk of spiders can rapidly seal any breaks and would work in wearable electronics to monitor your health | Continue reading
Essays in English written by people from China were branded by text-analysis tools as being generated by artificial intelligence 61 per cent of the time | Continue reading
How many distinct species of Galapagos giant tortoises are there? The latest genetic study says at least five, disputing previous work, and the answer could have implications for their conservation | Continue reading
Worm-like amphibians called caecilians have a mutation in a genetic sequence that’s critical for limb development, which could explain how they became limbless | Continue reading
A tool called Photoguard that aims to stop images from being edited by artificial intelligence doesn't work if you simply save an image as JPEG | Continue reading
High-resolution projections of extreme precipitation in North America show the US north-west and south-east experiencing more severe and frequent floods by the turn of the century | Continue reading
A medical skateboard designed to help very premature infants practise moving forwards improves their chances of crawling and standing by the age of 1 | Continue reading
Megaconstellations of satellites are a problem for astronomy, and while SpaceX has made several attempts to dim its Starlink satellites, they don't seem to be having the desired effect | Continue reading
Four people will soon move into the Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM) base in Arizona, where they will have to permanently wear pressurised spacesuits | Continue reading
Your biological age - a measure based on markers within your DNA, rather than your number of birthdays - can rise and fall in relation to stressful events | Continue reading
Boars that encounter a wolf carcass will try to flee or fight the corpse, suggesting that sometimes dead predators can still influence their prey’s behaviour | Continue reading
You have a decent chance of seeing shooting stars from anywhere in the world during the Lyrids meteor shower peak in the early hours of 22 and 23 April | Continue reading
AI tools can explore the ethics of AI itself, says Lavie Tidhar. His new dystopian film uses AI image-generation program Midjourney to tell the story of a well-meaning artificial intelligence trying to help the last surviving human | Continue reading
Robots have been roaming Google offices for two years, attempting to separate recyclable items from waste in bins and can now do it with 84 per cent accuracy | Continue reading
An object made of hundreds of atoms exhibits a quantum property normally only associated with very small objects | Continue reading
AI agents powered by ChatGPT showed human-like planning and behaviour in simulations, demonstrating social behaviour such as organising a Valentine's Day party | Continue reading
Protein shells designed using AI can work as carriers for immunity-inducing molecules, generating more antibodies in mice than some competing vaccine approaches | Continue reading
Marine mammals use a variety of tricks to snooze at sea - elephant seals fall asleep and gradually drift to the depths | Continue reading
A quadcopter can use its inflatable body to land on a wide variety of objects. The collision-resistant drone could help search-and-rescue missions | Continue reading
Just like people, the simple nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans is driven to consume high-calorie food when its cannabinoid receptors are activated, hinting at a common signalling pathway for preventing starvation | Continue reading