This week's magazine

Table of contents

Leaders

Health

To curb obesity, we must pay heed to a revolution in nutrition science

IT WAS a tempting offer enjoyed by millions of people: as many cut-price restaurant meals as you could eat every Monday to Wednesday for a month. While the UK's recent "eat out to help out" scheme may have saved jobs and boosted the hospitality industry after the coronavirus lockdown, it is unlikely to have done …

News

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News

Physics

Watch a toy boat float upside down in a levitating puddle

https://youtu.be/n7UtAR3Tw1Q Shaking a liquid fast enough allows it to levitate, and a toy boat can float on top of the levitating fluid – or upside down beneath it. When a viscous fluid like silicone oil is shaken up and down around 100 times a second, resulting pressure waves can cause air bubbles in the fluid …

News

Space

Gravitational wave detectors have found their biggest black hole yet

News

Environment

Blue jeans pollute water by releasing 50,000 microfibres per wash

News

Technology

Secure quantum communications network is the largest of its kind

News

Environment

Winter ice in the Bering Sea is doomed to disappear within decades

News

Health

E-cigarettes are no better than alternative aids to quit smoking

News

Environment

Aviation’s contribution to global warming has doubled since 2000

News

Life

Naked mole rats are nearly deaf because their ears can’t amplify sound

News

Health

Russian biologist still aims to make CRISPR babies despite the risks

News

Humans

Trees and shrubs might reveal the location of decomposing bodies

News

Space

SpaceX says tests show Starlink satellites deliver high-speed internet

News

Space

China seems to have launched a secret reusable space plane

News

Physics

Ultracold atoms can work together to shape or steer light

News

Technology

Small sticker could hide a fighter jet from an enemy drone

News

Health

What will happen to covid-19 cases in winter and how can we prepare?

News

Health

Could the coronavirus merge with another virus to create a new threat?

News

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Analysis

Technology

Could Australia’s clash with Facebook over news articles go global?

Will Australia's regulation of tech companies start a global trend? Facebook has announced that it will ban users in Australia from sharing news content, a move that comes in response to media regulation laws proposed by the Australian government. “Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia …

News

Physics

Could we jump into a wormhole to save us from the world at present?

News

Humans

The way we collect covid-19 data perpetuates racism in healthcare

News

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Aperture

Life

Image of whooper swans flying in harmony wins bird photography award

This ethereal image shows whooper swans gliding over water in the city of Sanmenxia in Henan Province, China. It won Shu Qing a prize in the 2020 Bird Photographer of the Year competition

Regulars

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Features

Health

Why there is no such thing as a healthy diet that works for everyone

What is good for us to eat varies so much from person to person that a universally wholesome diet is a fiction. Instead, the science of nutrition is hot on the heels of a new recipe for healthy eating

Features

Life

How ancient proteins are untangling humanity's family tree

Features

Space

Anousheh Ansari interview: Why everyone should see Earth from space

Features

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Culture

Technology

Tenet review: Time twisting fun that is head-spinningly hard to grasp

Robert Pattinson (left) and John David Washington (right) in Tenet Bullets racing towards guns, not from them; dust explosions deflating back down into the solid earth. This, Tenet ’s writer and director Christopher Nolan assures us, is time inversion. It is absolutely not time travel . Nolan has been peculiarly insistent that Tenet , which …

Culture

Life

The amusing skulduggery-filled tale of how beavers returned to Britain

Culture

Humans

Don't Miss: Science Disrupt is about the people who bring about change

Culture

Humans

Playing chess where pieces time travel is confusing – in a good way

Culture

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More

Puzzle #76: Four hippos

#76 Four hippos The rangers at the Savannah Wilderness Experience are on a mission to weigh the four adult hippos in the park. Their scales can bear a weight of up to 4 tonnes, but are unreliable with anything below 2 tonnes, and all the hippos weigh less than that, so the rangers have had …

Regulars

Tom Gauld ponders the downsides of life in biohazard lab

Regulars

How storms get named, according to Twisteddoodles

Regulars

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Regulars

Why Neuralink’s mind-reading device gave neuroscientists the hump

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word