Category: Science

Driving represented an interesting way for neuroscientists to study how rodents acquire new skills, and unexpectedly, rats had an intense motivation for their driving training.

It has been 50 years since archaeologists discovered Lucy, perhaps the most famous ancient hominin ever found. But the scientists who have studied her say […]

Two massive galaxies are bending light from the same distant quasar, creating a so-called Einstein zigzag lens that could help astronomers pin down how quickly […]

You should absolutely not build this thing. But it’s still fun to think through the physics.

A genetic flaw dooms half of all crested newts to die before they hatch – now we know how this baffling evolutionary quirk came about

Water levels in the Caspian Sea are set to fall dramatically as the climate gets hotter, posing a major threat to economic activity and ecosystems […]

Governments and companies almost never take action when satellites alert them about large methane leaks coming from oil and gas infrastructure

Letting AI models communicate with each other in their internal mathematical language, rather than translating back and forth to English, could accelerate their task-solving abilities

What to expect from Donald Trump’s EPA pick: deregulation justified as boosts for the economy and platitudes about the importance of clean air and water.

Two recent studies offer some of the most nuanced evidence yet about the potential benefits and risks of working on your feet.

Attempts to prevent Australian children from accessing social media are likely to fail, and could do more harm than good

A research team in China has held atoms in a state of quantum superposition for 23 minutes, suggesting tantalizing new possibilities in research and quantum […]

The mega-coral measures 34 metres by 32 metres – making it larger than a blue whale – and it is thought to be three centuries […]

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for the sixth test flight of Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket. It aims to conduct the launch as early […]

Driverless cars can now do doughnuts and drift like stunt drivers, skidding sideways around corners while maintaining control, which might help the cars recover from […]

With the help of a ruby cube and two laser beams, researchers made one ray of light cast a shadow when illuminated by the other

Readers give higher ratings to AI-generated poetry than the works of poets such as William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson – perhaps because they […]

The Proba-3 mission consists of two spacecraft that will fly in close formation to study the sun, with the shadow of one creating an artificial […]

Satellite images reveal that when conditions are right, the pollution from industrial hotspots can cause snow to fall downwind and punch holes in clouds

Popular semaglutide-based drugs used for weight loss may reduce chronic and acute pain, which could make them a promising alternative to opioids

It’s been a year since the gene-editing treatment Casgevy was approved for sickle cell disease and a related blood disorder. It’s finally being infused into […]

A surprising reversal of our usual understanding of the second law of thermodynamics shows that it may be possible for heat to move in the […]

Zinc nanoparticles, a common sunscreen ingredient, can make plants more resilient to climate change – in a surprising way

Before Mesopotamian people invented writing, they used cylinder seals to press patterns into wet clay – and some of the symbols used were carried over […]

Fibres in wet wipes and clothes often make their way into soil – and natural versions could be more damaging than synthetic ones

One day, doctors might be able to 3D print copies of your organs in order to test a variety of drugs, thanks to a new […]

The British Heart Foundation’s Reflections of Research competition showcases beautiful images captured by researchers studying heart and circulatory disease

Our ancestors probably used a wide range of plant-based tools that have since been lost to history. Now we’re finally getting a glimpse of this […]

Experts predict that the number of cancer cases around the world will skyrocket, resulting in millions more fatalities by 2050

The Long March 9 super heavy-lift rocket made an appearance at a major airshow recently—and looks awfully familiar.

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water

WIRED spoke with the researchers responsible for the discovery of Valeriana, a lost Maya city in the middle of the jungle of Campeche.

In support of their AI ambitions, tech companies are rapidly expanding US data centres, and this growth is on track to significantly increase US gas […]

From Harlan Ellison to Haruki Murakami, via an intergalactic cooking competition, this month has plenty of science fictional treats on offer

Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical […]

Thousands of hidden graves contain the bodies of the disappeared all across Mexico. Using drones, hyperspectral imaging, and other technologies, scientists and members of the […]

Just under 5 per cent of the Wikipedia pages in English that have been published since ChatGPT’s release seem to include AI-written content

DNA analysis suggests Pando, a quaking aspen in Utah with thousands of stems connected by their roots, is between 16,000 and 81,000 years old

Alan Turing’s theories about computation seem to have a startling consequence, placing hard limits on how fast or slow any physical process in the universe […]

Soil is full of an uncountable number of viruses, and scientists are only beginning to understand just how substantial their role in the carbon cycle […]

Inside a hunk of a material called a semimetal, scientists have uncovered signatures of bizarre particles that sometimes move like they have no mass, but […]

A bird flu virus that has been circulating in dairy cattle for months has now been found in a pig in the US for the […]

A US Attorney’s office is investigating the company behind the doomed expedition to the wreck of the Titanic, sources tell WIRED, even as a civil […]

Weaving tales of magical fruit and vegetables into your children’s stories may encourage them to eat healthy snacks

Science Corporation’s retinal implant allowed some people who lost their central vision to read, play cards, and recognize faces.

The Sverris saga describes how castle invaders “took a dead man and cast him unto the well, and then filled it up with stones”, in […]

The largest and most ambitious Martian drone yet could carry kilograms of scientific equipment over great distances and set itself down on the Red Planet […]

Large language models can be used to scam humans, but AI is also susceptible to being scammed – and some models are more gullible than […]

The Arrhenius equation, which has accurately described rates of chemical reactions for more than a century, may have to be tweaked for the quantum realm

Are humanoid robots the future of space exploration? New Scientist reporter James Woodford took NASA’s Valkyrie for a spin to find out

When worker ants are exposed to a pathogenic fungus, they build nests that are more compartmentalised to reduce the risk of an epidemic

From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs

Five satellites due to launch this week could be brighter than most stars, and astronomers fear the growth of such constellations could have a catastrophic […]

Four private astronauts are riding a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule further from Earth than any human since 1972, where they will attempt the first ever […]

Using images captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, researchers have created a cloud atlas of Mars, to better understand the climate of […]

Hampered last month by bad weather, launch tower problems, and issues with its ride from SpaceX, the Polaris Dawn mission is at last on its […]

With antibiotics losing their effectiveness, one company is turning to gene editing and bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—to combat infections.

A global survey of more than a thousand cities shows heat and air pollution in urban environments often have a measurable influence on rainfall, creating […]

Google has built a quantum computer that makes fewer errors as it is scaled up, and this may pave the way for machines that could […]

The forecasts predicted an extreme storm season in the Atlantic, but so far there have only been three named hurricanes – so where are all […]

People with cancer may have understandable reasons to follow Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson in declining chemotherapy, but the odds aren’t in their favour, warns Elle […]

News of the asteroid 2024 RW1 impacting near the Philippines may have come as a shock this week, but space agencies and astronomers around the […]

Cyanobacteria exposed to shorter days are better at surviving cold conditions, showing that even simple organisms can prepare for the arrival or summer and winter

Rubbing a common yellow food dye onto a mouse’s skin turns it temporarily transparent, so we can monitor its insides without harming the animal

In counties in the US affected by a bat-killing disease, there has been a 31 per cent increase in insecticide use and an 8 per […]

Unlike in the Atlantic, there is little to stop high-intensity storms forming in Southeast Asia, and climate change is making conditions even more perilous.

Saline drops and sprays have already been linked to reduced cold symptoms in adults and now a study suggests they also work in children

The largest pterosaurs, ancient reptiles that were the first vertebrates to master flight, may have mostly soared while smaller ones flapped their wings, a pattern […]

With its particles in two places at once, quantum theory strains our common sense notions of how the universe should work. But one group of […]

After an mRNA vaccine for mpox achieved promising results in monkeys, researchers say it could have several advantages over existing vaccines – but cold storage […]

Patchy garbage collection services result in more than 50 million tonnes of unmanaged plastic waste each year, and the majority of this is incinerated

A network of neurons in the brain seems to be larger in people with depression, which could change how we think about the condition’s causes

A new procedure turns an alloy of nickel and titanium into a material as strong as steel but 20 times stretchier – and one application […]

A newly spotted asteroid dubbed CAQTDL2 will impact just east of the Philippines. There is no danger from the space rock, which will burn up […]

Nations and companies are ramping up their efforts to deploy the first satnav on the moon to support a flurry of planned missions there.

Clouds can trap heat or reflect it away from Earth, making their impact on global warming extraordinarily hard to predict. Now, new ways of studying […]

Stem cells made in the lab may one day aid cancer treatment by reducing our reliance on donors

Quartz crystals produce electricity when they are deformed by mechanical stress, which may explain how enormous chunks of gold can form in inert rock

Tracking data from a pregnant porbeagle shark near Bermuda suggest it was eaten by a great white shark – a kind of predation that has […]

Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has signs of an enormous ancient impact that would have redistributed its mass, changing its orientation in […]

Under protective coverings, piles of snow can be stored for a surprisingly long time, allowing ski resorts to mitigate some of the lack of snowfall […]

A survey found 66 species of insects making their homes in cobbled pavements on the streets of Berlin, and greater biodiversity near insect-friendly flower gardens

The brain’s microglia fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes they go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for Alzheimer’s

A faint glow from all of the galaxies that have ever existed fills the cosmos, and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has made the best measurement […]

An intricate atlas of the inner lining of the uterus could help researchers better understand conditions like endometriosis, infertility and abnormal menstruation

Around 25 per cent of the world’s population has intestinal parasite infections – these could hinder the effectiveness of covid-19 vaccines, according to research in […]

The latest Covid-19 surge reportedly has officials considering approval of the new strain-matched vaccine as soon as this week.

For the first time, climate scientists have explicitly said it will be impossible to limit peak warming to 1.5°C. Now our focus should be on […]

In children aged 6 to 11, long covid seems to often present as sleep problems or abdominal issues, while adolescents report fatigue and pain

After their initial training phase, AI algorithms can’t update and learn from new data, meaning tech companies have to keep training new models from scratch

Smashing gold nuclei together at high speeds billions of times has resulted in 16 particles of antihyperhydrogen-4, a very exotic and heavy form of antimatter

Past observations have indicated that the icy moon of Jupiter has a vast subsurface ocean. Launching in October, NASA’s Europa Clipper will go there in […]

A big rethink of our planet’s early years adds to growing fossil, chemical and DNA evidence that Earth was only a few hundred million years […]

A radio signal detected in 1977, sometimes claimed as evidence for aliens, may have been caused by a laser-like beam of microwave radiation

Physicists have demonstrated a bizarre cooling effect by setting up a detector to record the absence of photons in a laser experiment

While the exact cause of the deadly sinking of the Bayesian superyacht remains unknown, dangerous waterspouts were spotted in the area. Scientists say they may […]