Science

The Real Ice trial in Canada pumped seawater from below the ice sheet onto the surface Real Ice Each winter, Canada builds more than 7000 kilometres of ice roads, in part by drilling holes in lake ice and pumping water onto the surface, where it freezes and thickens the ice for massive vehicles, as seen

Falling head over heels in love may be a thing of the past, according to science imageBROKER.com/Alamy Individualism – prioritising your own goals over those of the wider community – is on the rise, and according to one of the largest ever studies on love, it is affecting how we feel about our partners. But

Quantum Backrooms lets you feel what it would be like to be stuck in a quantum computer Moth A quantum computer has been used to create a horror video game called Quantum Backrooms – and it’s available to play online. Peculiarities of quantum objects have long inspired philosophers and artists, and now game developers are

Cutting photons is infinitely weird Muhammad Fawaid/Alamy In Greek mythology, cutting one head off the Hydra of Lerna simply resulted in two more heads growing to replace it – and it turns out it’s even worse for photons. If you try to cut a piece off a particle of light, the result is infinitely many

A father mysteriously slips through time in Joseph Eckert’s The Traveler Mikhail Rudenko / Alamy Writing this as the UK swelters under an unprecedented May heatwave, perhaps it’s small wonder that so many science-fiction authors are currently imagining miserable versions of an overheated future in which their characters are struggling to survive. I’m intrigued by

Setting your sights high can lead to bigger rewards – up to a point Buena Vista Images/Getty Images Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars, so the saying goes. But shooting straight for the stars instead might actually be the more effective option, according to mathematicians. In life,

A scanning electron micrograph of pancreatic cancer cells ANNE WESTON, EM STP, THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A virus has stopped pancreatic cancer in its tracks in three people in a clinical trial in the US. Further evaluation is needed in larger trials, but the early results are encouraging, especially since only small doses

Paul Erdős made many conjectures about numbers in his life Oliver Helbig/Getty Images Just a week after an AI disproved an 80-year-old conjecture and astonished mathematicians, another conjecture that had stood for half a century has fallen, inspired by the same techniques, but this time written entirely by humans. Last week, an unreleased AI model

The disc of material swirling around a supermassive black hole may give birth to many planets NASA and M. Weiss/Chandra X-ray Center The active centres of galaxies might be regions of extraordinary planet formation, where millions of worlds are born. Most galaxies in the universe, such as our own Milky Way, host a supermassive black

Embryo models closely resemble early human embryos SCIEPRO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy Inside a lab in Vienna, cells are dividing to form a hollow sphere. Although the fragile ball has all the characteristics of an early human embryo, it isn’t quite what it seems. It didn’t, in fact, begin with an egg meeting a sperm. Instead, it

Gold doesn’t tarnish like other metals mauritius images GmbH/Alamy Silver goes dull, copper turns green and iron rusts, but gold always stays shiny. Why this is the case has remained a mystery, but researchers may have finally figured out what makes the valuable metal so resistant to change and how to tarnish it. Gold is

Wherever you are reading this, look around you. Every living thing you can see – other people, pets, birds flying past, trees, flowers, mushrooms, fish – is here because of unions between different species. Classic cases are lichens (typically formed of algae and fungi) or corals (made of algae and animal components), but these examples

Coloured scanning electron micrograph of human sperm cells PDC/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Infertility isn’t something men like to talk about but it’s very common. Around 1 in 10 couples will have problems with conception, and in half of cases it is wholly or partly to do with sperm. In many cases, existing fertility treatments can’t help

Sometimes, you work tirelessly on a problem, only to realise you have been going about it all backwards. Imagine trying to fit a massive antique piano through a tiny doorway. You have tried everything – rotating it, removing the legs, forceful shoving – but you just can’t get it to fit. Eventually, you realise it

White shirt material being cleaned with cold plasma University of Alabama in Huntsville, Propulsion Research Center Astronauts in space can’t do laundry – but that may be about to change. And it could mean that those on longer-duration missions will be able to have more of the comforts of home on the surfaces of the

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent 340 days in space on one mission NASA One of the most famous thought experiments in physics is the twin paradox, first proposed by Albert Einstein in his 1905 paper on special relativity, and later expanded on by physicist Paul Langevin. It goes something like this. An astronaut leaves Earth

Preparing a diphtheria and tetanus vaccination SIMANJUNTAK/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Diphtheria is surging in Australia for the first time since widespread vaccination began in the 1930s. The country has recorded 230 cases of the dangerous bacterial infection and one related adult death this year, with case numbers accelerating. The majority have occurred in Indigenous communities in remote areas

The intensity of politically induced anger and disgust may be what spurs people to protest Ian Francis/Alamy If the emotional rollercoaster of global politics feels overwhelming, the findings of a new study might help to explain why. Emotions evoked by political issues seem to be felt differently in the body than when the same emotions

Health officials working to tackle Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 21 May Michel Lunanga/Getty Images A new mRNA vaccine has been developed that may provide long-term protection against the deadliest viruses in the Ebola family – including the Bundibugyo strain currently spreading in two African countries. Over 600 people are

We may now know how Mercury gained its ice deposits NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Around 100 million years ago, the surface of Mercury suddenly underwent a dramatic change. Before then, its surface was relatively dry and ice-free – not surprising, as daytime temperatures there can reach upwards of 430°C (806°F) – but over the course