This week's magazine

Table of contents

Leaders

Health

People’s actions are making a real difference against the coronavirus

FOR many people, one of the most unsettling things about living through the coronavirus pandemic is the feeling of lacking control – whether it is over our daily lives, the broader situation or both. Vaccines promised a return to some kind of normality and, with it, a greater sense of control. But this week has …

News

---

News

Life

Some spiders use their silk to hoist helpless prey so it cannot escape

A Steatoda triangulosa spider capturing a lizard ( Podarcis muralis ) by lifting it with silk Some spiders take on prey that is far larger than they are, including lizards . To stop such prey from running away, they use their webs as pulleys to lift the doomed animals off the ground. Gabriele Greco and …

News

Environment

Australian government may use herpes virus to control invasive carp

News

Technology

Bouncing backpack is easier to carry and generates electricity

News

Space

Lines on Mars could be created by salty water triggering landslides

News

Space

The United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter is about to arrive at Mars

News

Life

Orangutans create new ways to communicate with each other in captivity

News

Health

Some mouse sperm try to sabotage rivals in race to fertilise the egg

News

Chemistry

'Splat chemistry' creates substances by chucking molecules at a wall

News

Humans

2700-year-old face cream was made from animal fat and cave ‘milk’

News

Life

Decline of butterfly collecting hobby threatens conservation research

News

Environment

Salt marsh fairy circles go from rings to bullseyes to adapt to stress

News

Physics

Mathematician makes breakthrough on 100-year-old problem about knots

News

Health

South Africa rethinks plans after variant evades AstraZeneca vaccine

News

Health

How can you tell if a coronavirus vaccine has given you immunity?

News

Health

The 5 best things you can do to boost the chance of a vaccine working

News

Health

Next coronavirus vaccines may be drops, pills or printed on demand

News

---

Analysis

Technology

Our study of gambling and its harms shows it's time to intervene

Mobile gambling is experiencing a boom Gambling has changed a lot in recent years. Mobile apps give people unlimited access to the global betting market at the touch of a button from anywhere in the world. As the number of gamblers has increased, so too have bookmakers’ profit margins and the amount of problem gambling. …

News

Environment

Net zero has taken the world by storm in a rare climate win

News

---

Aperture

Life

Stunning picture shows a baby lemon shark learning the ropes

Lemon sharks grow up in the waters around mangrove forests, giving them protection and a place to learn to hunt. Shane Gross captured this photograph on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas

Regulars

---

Features

Environment

Is there any type of fish you can actually eat sustainably?

Labels declaring seafood "sustainable" give us comfort we’re consuming ethically, but tracing the true environmental toll tells a different story - mostly

Features

Health

The game-changing covid-19 treatments that helped slash the death rate

Features

Space

Avi Loeb interview: Could ‘Oumuamua be alien technology after all?

Features

---

Culture

Life

Playing With Sharks review: The amazing woman who helped film Jaws

Valerie Taylor helped film Jaws In January 1992, Valerie and Ron Taylor accomplished an incredible first when they filmed great white sharks without a safety cage or any other protection. Alongside two other divers, they swam among great white sharks off  Dyer Island ,  South Africa . Valerie Taylor, a living legend and icon in …

Culture

Health

It’s A Sin review: A series that will tug on your heartstrings

Culture

Humans

Don't Miss: Netflix's Tribes of Europa, a German near-future sci-fi

Culture

Space

Build colonies or save spacecraft in the best video games set on Mars

Culture

---

More

Puzzle #100: Can you work out how to reach your flight on time?

#100 Late for the gate This deceptively tricky everyday problem set in an airport was first posed by the US mathematician  Terence Tao in 2008. You are in a bit of a rush to catch your plane, which is leaving from a remote gate in the terminal. Some stretches of the terminal have moving walkways, …

Regulars

Humans

How to make a marvellously smooth mayonnaise

Regulars

Tom Gauld has a heart-to-heart with dark matter

Regulars

Twisteddoodles on what's new in space

Regulars

---

Regulars

Spinach has less iron than you think and can’t even send emails

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

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word