CATEGORIES

Virtual Reality Is About To Change Everything

This year, virtual reality will finally come of age. The headsets won’t just be worn by gamers: this revolutionary technology is set to change everything. From booking a holiday to visiting the doctor, our lives are about to get a whole lot more virtual...

Kiwi- A National Treasure

Kiwis are iconic in New Zealand, an integral part of the culture, appearing on merchandise everywhere, but in reality they have been disappearing in the wild. Now, the rarest of their kind, the rowi, is part of a long-running protection programme.

Eat For Your Genes

Geneticist Dr Giles Yeo argues that biology, rather than self-discipline, is to blame for the obesity crisis. He talks to Helen Glenny about his new book and what we need to understand in order to tackle the obesity epidemic and improve our health

Could Neanderthal Mind Reveal What Made Modern Humans A Successful Species?

Scientists are growing ‘mini-brains’ containing Neanderthal genes. Could they reveal what made modern humans such a successful species?

Dinosaur Brain Identified for First Time Ever

This ‘brown pebble’ found by a fossil hunter in Sussex more than a decade ago has been confirmed as the first known example of dinosaur brain tissue.

Planet's Waters Have More Intellect Than we Gave Them Credit For

Think of intelligence in the animal world and you rarely think of fish. But there’s growing evidence to show that the various species living in the planet’s waters have greater intellects than we’ve given them credit for.

Hawking's Last Hurrah

The world famous physicist and author of A Brief History Of Time is laid to rest alongside Newton and Darwin.

The Power Of Thought

Labs around the world are building machines that we can control with our minds. How long will we have to wait for an upgrade?

Space Is Fast Replacing Land As The Arena For Conflict

Forget the traditional battlegrounds of land, sea and air. Rapid developments in technology and our reliance on satellites for every thing from communication to navigation are pushing conflicts into a new arena: outer space

is ‘Runner's High' A Real Thing?

Spring is the time when fairweather runners like me pull our trainers out of hibernation, dust them down and reluctantly start running again.

What Will It Take For Us To Travel Through Time?

In 1915 in Berlin, at the height of WWI, Albert Einstein presented a revolutionary new theory of gravity – the General Theory of Relativity. It has since become one of the most successful theories ever, passing every observational test thrown at it and predicating cosmological phenomena such as the Big Bang, black holes and gravitational waves. But the theory has also given scientists sleepless nights because it makes one thing pretty much unavoidable: time machines…

The Most mysterious Objects In The Universe

The discovery in October 2017 of a bizarre, cigar-shaped object hurtling through our Solar System set imaginations racing. Was it an asteroid? A comet? Or an alien spaceship, sent here on a reconnaissance mission? Named ‘Oumuamua, it joined a select group of cosmic enigmas and celestial oddities that have astronomers scratching their heads…

Tricks Of The Mind

Psychologists are starting to figure out why we get false memories, and it turns out that they might even be useful… 

Where Does Time Come From?

US physicist Prof Richard Muller thinks that new chunks of time could be created as the universe expands. And he wants to peer into the heart of colliding black holes to prove it…

Where Are All The Habitable Planets?

The number of known planets is increasing all the time, but how soon can we expect to find life? Stuart Clark takes a closer look.

The Six Wives In A Different Light

From the scheming sophisticate who lost her head, to the hapless ‘mare’ who repulsed the king, the reputations of Henry VIII’s spouses are secure. But do the stereotypes stand up to scrutiny? Lucy Worsley investigates

Dinosaurs - The First Dinosaurs Could Have Come From Britain

Revolutionary new research may mean we have to redraw the dinosaurs’ family tree.

Dr John Roberts: When Top Gear Was Looking to Recreate the Car Chase in the Italian Job, They Came to Me

Engineer Dr John Roberts talks to Helen Pilcher about rollercoasters, Top Gear stunts and his latest design project, the British Airways i360.

This Viral Immunotherapy Appears To Be More Potent Than Others That Have Been Before

A team has created designer viruses that help the immune system target tumours. One of the researchers, Prof Daniel Pinschewer, describes this new approach to cancer therapy

This Queen Has Had No Equal On This Earth For 500 Years

She was one half of a 15th-century power couple that united Spain and helped propel the west towards global dominance. Of all Europe’s queens, argues Giles Tremlett, surely none had a greater impact than Isabella of Castile

Celebrate Our Pets

It seems we can’t get enough of our animal companions. But why do we keep pets at all? John Bradshaw argues that the answer can be found deep in our evolutionary past. 

Meet Your Second Brain

Decision-making, mood, disease… scientists are discovering that the network of neurons in our gut is involved in a lot more than just digestion .

Winston Churchill: Atomic Warrior, Nuclear Peacemaker

At the dawn of the Cold War, Churchill was one of the west’s leading champions of the atomic bomb. But, as Britain found itself in the crosshairs of a Soviet attack, his attitude changed – and that, writes Kevin Ruane, set him at odds with the United States.

Scientists Reverse Signs Of Ageing

 New genetic treatment using stem cells suggests we can trun back the clock on old age.

Go Wild In Australia

Experience close encounters with Australia’s extraordinary wildlife renowned around the world

A Surgeon With A Secret

As part of our occasional series profiling remarkable yet unheralded characters from history, Jeremy Dronfield introduces Dr James Barry, the medical pioneer and eminent surgeon to aristocracy, who was forced to conceal a fundamental fact – that ‘he’ was in fact a ‘she’

How Africa Is Learning to Cope With Drought

New technologies are helping ethiopians to stave off famine

Can We Trust Artificial Intelligence?

Deep learning is used in everything from speech recognition software to the assessment of mortgage applications. The only trouble is, we don’t really know how it works…

Seven Earth-Sized Exoplanets Found

The system of planets found orbiting nearby dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 may be our best chance yet of finding alien life.

Biochemistry

Chemists have added synthetic letters to bacterial DNA. Study leader Prof Floyd Romesberg explains how this could expand the genetic code to make proteins never before seen in nature.