Scholars for the first time identified chemical signatures of the components of a liquid concoction contained in a Bes mug. A new technique helped identify a sample flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes --...
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
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 in the region
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 the universe is expanding
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 that this fossil gave us a misleading image of the nature of her species
A classic study found that people can fail to notice a gorilla when they are focusing on something else, but new experiments suggest this "inattentional blindness" might not tell the whole story
Satellite images reveal that when conditions are right, the pollution from industrial hotspots can cause snow to fall downwind and punch holes in clouds
New research exploring the roots of modern Japanese populations has linked the genetic signature of Jomon hunter-gatherers to a higher body mass index (BMI) among individuals, underlining that ancient human ancestors can leave a genetic...
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 solar eclipse from the perspective of the other
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 dangerous situations
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 as 18 November. Here’s everything we know so far
Dozens of perforated pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel may be early examples of spindle whorls, a rotating tool used in textile making that was a step towards inventing the wheel
Food production is responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions. To get everyone the food they need in a warming world, governments worldwide must invest in securing our food systems
Photographer Kadir van Lohuizen captures the food industry's attempts to meet the challenges of climate change and conflicts in his new book, Food for Thought
The issue of men's dangerously bottled-up emotions finds a fresh and personal voice in Silent Men, a documentary that is at its most powerful when director Duncan Cowles turns the camera on others
Astronomy and particle physics are no longer seen as vital by the US establishment, so funding has fallen. But our work creates a sense of wonder, and wonder matters, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Feedback was delighted to learn of the appearance of quantum physicist Garrett Josemans on Netflix's Love is Blind. After all, being comfortable with two opposing realities can surely help in a relationship
Evidence that animals mourn the death of loved ones is growing, but we should be wary of letting our biases cloud this topic, says philosopher Susana Monsó
In his new book, Power Metal, journalist Vince Beiser provides a balanced briefing on the race for the resources that will shape our technological future
Few questions have captivated humankind more than the origin of life on Earth. How did the first living cells come to exist? How did these early protocells develop the structural membranes necessary for cells to thrive and assemble into...
A 'one of a kind' fossil discovery could transform our understanding of how the unique brains and intelligence of modern birds evolved, one of the most enduring mysteries of vertebrate evolution.
Could social bonds be the key to human big brains? A study of the fossil teeth of early Homo from Georgia dating back 1.77 million years reveals a prolonged childhood despite a small brain and an adulthood comparable to that of the great...
Selection for bigger tomatoes has made the fruits less sweet, but now it has been shown that gene editing can make them sweeter without decreasing yields
Researchers mapped Earth’s ionosphere, part of the upper atmosphere, using signal data from 40 million phones – a method that could improve GPS accuracy and help track space weather
AI and Google Street View have created 'digital twins' of living trees in North American cities – part of a huge simulation that could help make urban tree planting and trimming decisions
A new study finds that the disturbance-demanding plant species oak, hazel and yew were abundant in Europe's forests before modern humans arrived, strengthening the argument that ancient vegetation was not the shady closed-canopy forests...
An analysis of crystals in lava from the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa has revealed an unknown magma reservoir within the volcano, which could extend forecasts of eruptions from minutes to months
Campaigners are calling for stricter controls on rodenticides after finding that birds of prey in England are increasingly being exposed to high doses of rat poison
Never underestimate what a single gopher can achieve in a day: one of the burrowing mammals helped boost soil fungi in an area blanketed by ash from the explosive eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington state
Most assessments of global warming use 1850-1900 as a baseline, but researchers have now established a new pre-industrial reference by using Antarctic ice cores to estimate the average temperature before 1700
Experiments show that illuminating the underside of a decoy seal reduces attacks by great white sharks, revealing a possible strategy to protect surfers and swimmers
Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, giving us our only up-close look at the planet – but unusual space weather just before the craft arrived has given us a misleading idea about the planet’s magnetic field
Extreme weather and a growing population is driving a food security crisis. What can we do to break the vicious cycle of carbon emissions, climate change and soaring food costs – or is it already too late?
Seven major datasets used to train audio-generating AI models are three times more likely to use the words "man" or "men" than "woman" or "women", raising fears of bias
In a whirlwind of activity over the past two weeks, U.S. National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan has been at the forefront of championing a vision of innovation without limits and paving the way for a boundary-free...