Science

Hydrogels with a taste are administered into the mouth via a small tube Shulin Chen An electronic tongue that can replicate flavours like cake and fish soup could help recreate food in virtual reality, but can’t yet simulate other things that influence taste, such as smell. Yizhen Jia at The Ohio State University and his

The FEMA map detailed how climate change could affect the risk of various hazards across the US Andrii Biletskyi/Alamy Researchers in the US are pushing back against moves by the Trump administration to remove crucial climate data from government websites. One such move involving the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the latest example

Wayne McGregor’s Deepstaria is inspired by ocean life Ravi Deepres Deepstaria At Sadlers Wells in London until 2 March, then touring Deepstaria is a genus of deep-sea jellyfish, rarely seen, mysterious and delicate yet predatory. It is usually found between 600 metres and 1750 metres beneath the waves. It is also the favourite jellyfish of

Earth during a glacial period Zoonar/Alexander Savchuk/Alamy Without human-induced climate change, Earth may have been on track to plunge into another glacial period within 11,000 years. This long-term forecast of the planet’s “natural” climate is based on a new analysis of how wobbles in the shape of its orbit and the tilt of its axis

The International Space Station may be a bit too clean Geopix/Alamy The strategy of keeping spacecraft as clean and sterile as possible to ensure astronauts don’t become ill may be a mistake. Our immune systems may need stimulation from certain kinds of molecules and microbes to stay healthy, say researchers who have been studying the

A woman drinks water during a heatwave in Hyeres, France Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images Extreme heat seems to speed up biological ageing in older people, suggesting that it could raise the risk of age-related diseases. “This is one of the first large-scale studies to link long-term heat exposure to biological ageing in humans,”

Theoretical calculation of the energy levels of electrons in twisted layers of graphene in a magnetic field, showing the fractal “butterfly” pattern predicted by Douglas Hofstadter Yazdani Lab, Princeton University A fractal butterfly pattern produced by an unusual configuration of magnetic fields, first predicted almost 50 years ago, has been seen in detail for the

Members of the Himba community in Namibia get just 5.5 hours of sleep a night on average Nick Fox / Alamy Much has been written about how modern lifestyles mean we are no longer getting enough sleep, unlike our ancestors who lived in less technologically advanced times. But an analysis of 54 sleep studies conducted

This mummified wolf pup, found in Yukon, Canada, is 57,000 years old Government of Yukon The ivory hunters knew they had found something special. It was 2020 and they were tunnelling into the banks of the Badyarikha river in Siberia. The permanently frozen soil of the river basin is a rich hunting ground for woolly

African elephants have extra copies of genes that help resist cancer Neil Aldridge/Nature Picture Library/Alamy Bigger animals live longer and have more cells that could go awry, so we would expect them to have a greater risk of developing cancer. A comprehensive analysis of 263 species suggests this is indeed the case, but also finds

An artist’s impression of the Athena spacecraft on the moon NASA A private space mission will launch to the moon this week, aiming for the southern-most point ever visited on the lunar surface. The Athena spacecraft, made by US-based Intuitive Machines, is due to launch onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space

Researchers gave stray dogs a choice of three bowls of different colours Anamitra Roy et al. 2025 Street dogs in India appear to love yellow. In an experiment, the free-ranging canines approached an empty yellow bowl around three times more than a nearby blue or grey bowl, even when those other bowls held food. The

Tim Faulkner at Aussie Ark gets ready to release a Tasmanian devil in a fenced sanctuary at Barrington Tops, Australia James Woodford I’m sharing a ride with two very cranky and confused Tasmanian devils, loaded in the back of our all-terrain vehicle inside large plastic traps. These devils are a long way from their species’

The US withdrawal from the World Health Organization formally takes one year, but the country has already stopped sharing influenza surveillance with the international body, which could impact the efficacy of the next flu vaccine View Source Here

Wilbourne Farm in Virginia James Dinneen Kade Wilbourne pulls a lever, and several tonnes of volcanic rock shoot out onto the field behind us in a fan of blue-grey dust. We are sitting in the cockpit of a tractor on the Wilbourne Farm in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Normally, soybean and corn yields are the metrics

The black hair conditioner on the left is derived from the wood powder on the right Fengyang Wang/Stockholm University This sustainable, wood-based hair conditioner may be pitch black and smell like peat, but its creators claim it could be the future of haircare after tests suggest it may work just as well as commercial products.

Does time move backwards in some situations? sakkmesterke/Alamy Some quantum systems may have two arrows of time, one running forwards as usual and another moving backwards. This means that, at some extremely small scales, time may have the option of moving in both directions – a stunning feature that may have been overlooked across much

A mouse tends to an unconscious peer by pulling its tongue Wenjian Sun et al. 2025 When they find another mouse unconscious, some mice seemingly try to revive their companion by pawing at them, biting and even pulling their tongue aside to clear their airways. The finding hints that caregiving behaviour might be more common

Extreme weather, including hurricanes, has increased with climate change MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) presents a briefing summarising the global climate each month – in the first of these calls under the Trump Administration, NOAA researchers avoided making any link between January’s record high global

Women lining up at a mobile tent for reproductive health services at a clinic in Zimbabwe MSI Zimbabwe/Arete/Tendai Marima The day Donald Trump took office as president of the United States, he issued an order temporarily pausing foreign aid, including the funding that flows through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The funding freeze