An exhibit at the Oracles, Omens and Answers showIan Wallman Oracles, Omens and AnswersST Lee Gallery, Oxford, UKUntil 27 April 2025 There can be few happier disciplines than the history of science: the study of how people did the best...
Can banana peel really help your houseplants?Shutterstock/ThamKC Back in the 1990s, the kids in my high school were convinced that banana peels contained a mysterious psychoactive substance that could apparently induce vivid hallucinations when smoked. I suppose it’s the tragic...
Laser beams in a physics laboratoryCallum Fraser / Alamy Stock Photo A new way to gauge distance using lasers can measure lengths of more than 100 kilometres to within a thousandth of the width of a human hair, and could...
The uncovered whitebark pine treesGregory Pederson A 5900-year-old whitebark pine forest has been discovered due to the melting of alpine ice in the Rocky mountains. Scientists found more than 30 trees approximately 3100 metres above sea level – 180 metres...
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Welcome to our first science news roundup of 2025. Here are a few of the stories you may have missed last week.There’s a bunch of public health...
January 13, 20254 min readWhy Does Greenland Interest Trump? Climate Change Is Only Part of the StoryArctic shipping routes and burgeoning mining opportunities may be part of Greenland’s appeal to President-elect Donald Trump, but each comes with challenges as wellBy...
January 10, 20253 min readU.S. TikTok Ban Looms as Supreme Court Hears ArgumentsTikTok is on the clock: ByteDance, the app’s China-based owner, must sell it by January 19 or face a banBy Ben Guarino edited by Dean VisserParticipants hold signs...
CLIMATEWIRE | As historic fires rip through the Los Angeles area, President-elect Donald Trump is demanding Gov. Gavin Newsom “open up the water main” and allow “beautiful, clean, freshwater to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!”At first glance, it seems to make sense....
Italian ryegrass is a common weed in arable cropsJohn Cussans Weeds resistant to the herbicide glyphosate have found been found in the UK for first time. The species in question, called Italian ryegrass, is very widespread in the UK, but...
A transmission electron micrograph of a section through pancreas tissue, showing cells that produce insulinSTEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy The first human trial of insulin-producing cells that have been gene-edited to evade immune attack is a success so far. The cells...
