CATEGORIES

Artificial sweeteners found in sugar-free foods can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria

The discovery could help in the war against superbugs

Everything You Need to Know About Intrusive Thoughts

Occasionally, you're minding your own business when a weird - and sometimes disturbing or upsetting - thought pops into your head. Why does your brain do this, and does it mean that you're a bad person?

A lab to live by

CERN continues to be a hotspot for scientific discovery

HOW TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

At the Polarization Lab in North Carolina, multidisciplinary researchers – including social scientists, statisticians and computer scientists – are breaking apart the social media status quo to rebuild it, one peer-reviewed brick at a time

W BOSON: IS IT ABOUT TO BREAK PHYSICS?

The mass of the W boson, a subatomic particle, appears to be wrong. What could this mean for the Standard Model of particle physics?

HOW OUR BRAINS DECLINE AS WE AGE

The charts could one day be used as a clinical tool to help track patients’ brain development and diagnose neurodevelopmental disorders

LAB GROWN MEAT

Everything you need to know about a future where you can have your steak and eat it…

An Immune System for the Planet

Can we build a global pathogen defence system – a planetary equivalent of the immune system – to protect us when the next pandemic arrives?

STIMULATION AND SIGNALLING

Using magnets to influence the brain could lead to revolutionary new depression treatment. The method, tested in rats, targets star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes. Neuroscientists Dr Yichao Yu and Prof Mark Lythgoe at University College London tell us more…

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: WHY IS IT BEING RETIRED AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO IT?

The last decade of the ageing space station’s life will feature private occupants, movies and an eventual watery grave

THE PERILS OF FOLKLORE

Seemingly innocuous folk cures and old wives’ tales can have a darker side

THE EXPLAINER: TORNADOES

All about tornadoes

YOU, ME AND OUR MICROBES

Why you are more like your partner than you might think

ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?

The search for alien life is ramping up. But what if, instead of searching for signs of biology, we looked for something more familiar: an extraterrestrial civilisation?

THE FIBONACCI SEQUENCE

A mathematical phenomenon seen in everything from fruit to music

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

The volcanoes of 2021 blew our minds at a time when much of the world was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic

NEW DADS: DO THEY GET POSTNATAL DEPRESSION?

Nearly one in four new fathers suffers from anxiety and depression in the first year following their children’s birth. Should we be doing more to help them?

YOUR PRODUCTIVE BRAIN

Increasing your productivity is easy. It’s just a matter of making a few simple changes to your routine, or behaviour, or thinking, and your productivity will soar. At least, that’s what countless online articles claim. The actual science tells a different story. Even a modest amount of research reveals that some of the most commonly touted claims about how to boost productivity fall apart in the face of the evidence. So, here are some of the most common myths around boosting productivity, along with a number of approaches that have a more robust scientific basis.

DOES YOUR DOG REALLY LOVE YOU?

Sure, they wag their tails to greet us and are happy to snuggle up and watch TV in the evening, but are our beloved pooches actually experiencing the same love for us as we feel for them?

As the crow dies

Corvids, such as crows, rooks and ravens, are some of the smartest animals out there. They can learn to make new sounds, they can cooperate and even use tools. But as Dr Kaeli Swift explains, they also have some intriguing rituals when it comes to their dead... and could even be capable of feeling empathy

An end to ageing?

Eternal youth is the stuff of religion and mythology, but what if we could just have a bit more of it? What if there was a pill that could slow down the ravages of time, so that you could feel younger for longer. It sounds like snake oil, but there's a growing body of research that's betting on making it a reality

A Winning Formula

Beneath the rainforests of South America lives a fungi that consumes 50,000 leaves a day without ever coming to the surface. It relies on ants to bring it food in exchange for nutrients. Evolutionary biologist Dr Pepijn Kooij speaks to Amy Barrett about this special relationship...

NOT MY FIRST METAVERSE

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might be getting excited about the metaverse, but the idea is nothing new

SEEING THE BLUES

Blue light from devices can have positive and negative effects on us

WHAT IS SYNAESTHESIA?

Connecting senses in fascinating ways means some people see the world completely differently

NASA'S SOLAR PROBE 'TOUCHES' THE SUN

The Parker Solar Probe is part of the way through its seven-year mission to investigate the inner workings of our nearest star

THE ΒΙΟ BOTS

Bio-inspired robots that can fly like birds and creep like cockroaches are helping researchers to understand more about how animals move and behave

THE VOLCANO THAT SHOOK THE EARTH

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano was a once-in-a-century geological event - and now the clock is ticking to study its effects...

ME YOU, AND INTIMACY TOO

When was the last time you were intimate with someone, emotionally, intellectually, or physically? Psychologist Dr Michelle Drouin says we are in an intimacy famine, and speaks to Amy Barrett about whether social media and smartphones are stripping us of one of our basic human needs

Combatting Virus Variants Before They Emerge

The technology could be used to create universal vaccines for COVID, malaria and more, its creators say