October 15, 20241 min readPoem: ‘Alfred Wegener to the World’Science in meter and verseBy Daniel Galef On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure...
Boophis pikei, a newly named species of Madagascan frogMiguel Vences (CC-BY-SA 4.0) Deep in the forests of Madagascar, researchers have discovered seven new species of frogs and named them after characters from Star Trek. “The calls of the frogs remind...
October 15, 20242 min readTiny Babies Who Can Smell Their Mother Recognize Faces BetterA smell’s effect on facial recognition is key at first—but decreases as a baby’s eyesight improvesBy Simon Makin StefaNikolic/Getty ImagesBabies experience a torrent of sensory information from...
The Tibetan plateauNicolas Marino/mauritius images GmbH/Alamy Climate change is raising winter temperatures faster than those of summer, especially in high-altitude areas. This “asymmetric” warming could spell trouble for the vast amount of carbon stored in soils there by altering microbial...
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—Just four days after Hurricane Milton barreled through Cape Canaveral, Fla., a mission set to explore the workings of another water world blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Loosed from our world’s gravitational harbor by SpaceX’s...
There are many ways for computers to store numbersAndrew Ostrovsky/Panther Media GmbH/Alamy Changing the way numbers are stored in computers could improve the accuracy of calculations without needing to increase energy consumption or computing power, which could prove useful for...
Archaeological research has helped us understand the complicated story of our species’ past, from the earliest hominins to the dawn of civilisation and beyond. But some people are convinced that it has overlooked an important chapter. They believe there was...
Joy (Bel Powley) and William (Nick Robinson) after “discovering” sexMichael Tyburski/San Sebastian Film Festival Turn Me OnMichael Tyburski Truant Pictures (On digital platforms from 4 November) An Eccentric visionary has created a commune centred on a pharmaceutical “vitamin” that suppresses...
The planet Saturn photographed with an amateur telescopeGrey Zone / Alamy Stock Photo When I was a teen, I joined an urban astronomy club at my school. It wasn’t popular: most nights, it was just me and a physics teacher...
Illustration of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraftNASA/JPL-Caltech The largest spacecraft ever created by NASA for an interplanetary mission will launch today to determine whether Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, has an environment that could support life. The Europa Clipper mission is...
