Science

An oil lamp found in Lascaux cave in France Sémhur CC BY-SA 4.0 This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. In the prehistoric opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the first tool is a club: a long limb

Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is increasingly vulnerable to flooding because of rising sea levels Getty Images There has been an abrupt change in the rate of sea level rise as measured by satellites. Around 2012, it suddenly accelerated and has remained higher ever since. It is possible that the sudden jump is mainly

A forest fire is burning in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo A large forest fire is spreading through the Chernobyl exclusion zone after a drone struck the area yesterday. Though the fire is serious, those on the ground say the risk of radioactive

An artist’s impression of a light sail RICHARD BIZLEY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Interstellar travel propelled by light just got one step closer. Light sails, which are huge sheets pushed along by light that bounces off of them, may be the best way to travel enormous distances through space, and now we may have a way to

Genome duplication has occurred in many flowering plants, such as the purple gromwell David Chapman/Alamy Extra copies of genetic instructions may have helped flowering plants survive mass extinctions, including the catastrophe that saw off the dinosaurs. New findings suggest that angiosperms – flowering plants like daisies, grasses and fruit trees – may have survived major

The Bering Strait separates Alaska and Russia Ocean Color/OB.DAAC/OBPG/NASA It would be an engineering project on a truly epic scale, but we may one day need to consider building a dam between Alaska and eastern Russia. The audacious proposal would be designed to stave off the worst consequences of the collapse of a vital ocean

Archival imagery from the Apollo 17 mission to the moon. The yellow box contains an enlarged area of the original photo in which three lights are visible above the lunar terrain US Department of Defense The US Department of Defense (DoD) released a trove of files on UFOs. The files include images along with government

An MRI scan of polycystic ovaries (green) GUSTOIMAGES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is notorious for disrupting hormones and fertility, but it may have some surprising benefits after the age of 40. Ageing seems to naturally reshape the affected ovaries, often making periods more regular, delaying perimenopause and increasing fertility. “Over the years, we’ve

Medics escort a person with a suspected hantavirus infection to an ambulance after being flown to Amsterdam, the Netherlands Peter Dejong/Associated Press/Alamy The outbreak of hantavirus on board the cruise ship MV Hondius is unlikely to become an epidemic, the World Health Organization announced today. In a press briefing, a panel of WHO scientists sought

The ultra-sensitive pressure sensor features a 100-nanometre silica sphere held in place by laser light Thomas Penny/Yale Wright Laboratory The pressure produced by a single particle can now be measured for the first time, thanks to a device that uses a tiny bead held in place by a laser. It is so sensitive that researchers

Research on love has largely neglected romance in later life Alejandro Munoz/Alamy We know almost nothing about how dating differs for older adults compared with earlier in life, a scientific conference on love has heard. But despite a lack of data, there are reasons to believe dating in later life is becoming increasingly common, and

An artist’s impression of the Western Australian koala WA Museum Australia was once home to a second species of koala that lived only in the west of the continent, where it became extinct around 30,000 years ago. Today, there is only one koala species: Phascolarctos cinereus. It is found almost exclusively in eucalyptus forests in

For minerologists, a mine is an invitation. The earth has been broken open, its veins laid bare – and those who enter hope to find unknown wonders. In the 1970s, Kali Kafi mine near the small Iranian town of Anarak fulfilled that hope. There, among the dusty desert rocks, Joachim Otteman and Darius Adib saw

Doug Whitney (left, pictured with his son Brian in November 2022) is genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s, but has so far dodged the condition Shelby Lum/Associated Press/Alamy A man in the US who was virtually guaranteed to get early-onset Alzheimer’s disease because of his genetics has somehow dodged it, possibly thanks to his inadvertent heat

The health benefits depend on the type of honey you have TihomirLikov/Shutterstock I am a honey fanatic. On sourdough bread with lots of butter, in smoothies or Asian stir fries, I can’t get enough. I justify my habit based on some vague recollection of hearing that it has some health benefits, but am I kidding

A coin-sized device attached to underwear measures how often someone farts Brantley Hall University of Maryland People have a poor grasp of how often they fart, but smart underwear can provide a more accurate measure of flatulence, helping to spot gut-related conditions that might go undiagnosed like lactose intolerance. Brantley Hall at the University of

Irene Velez Torres and Stientje van Veldhoven, ministers from Colombia and the Netherlands, embrace at the end of the conference in Santa Marta, Colombia Ivan Valencia/Associated Press/Alamy When almost every country met in Brazil last November for the annual United Nations climate summit COP30, hopes were high they would draft a roadmap for the “transition

Two oak trees in the spring, with varying degrees of leaf growth Sven Finnberg If caterpillars have munched through a lot of an oak tree’s leaves one year, then, the following spring, the tree’s buds open three days later. This delay means the caterpillars don’t have food available when they hatch, and so many die,

Are you drinking the right amount of water? kazoka30/Getty Images Water bottles have become comically large in recent years, as health influencers urge us to drink more water for glowing skin, better brain function, improved athletic performance and just about everything else. But is gulping down litres of water a day really necessary? And can

Software produced by the National Health Service is usually open to the public Mareks Perkons/Alamy NHS England is hurriedly withdrawing all the software it has written from public view because of the perceived risk of hacking from cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Security experts say the move is unnecessary and counterproductive. Software produced by the National Health