23 September 2020
Do species really exist? Are genes destiny? Do only the fittest survive? Can we shape or stop evolution? New insights into nature are providing surprising answers, and a glorious new picture of life’s complexity
17 May 2018
Cannabis – the source of the drug marijuana – virtually disappeared from Europe just as farmers arrived, so they didn’t get the chance to grow it for another 4500 years
30 April 2018
Levels of nitrogen oxides in the air are still falling across the US, but satellite measurements show the reduction has slowed down unexpectedly since 2011
30 April 2018
A plant fossil that lay unnoticed for a century is unexpectedly large for something so old, and it could upend our ideas about the evolution of land plants
21 March 2018
A strange discovery, made by polar explorer Robert Scott a century ago, might explain how complex life survived when the planet froze over into “Snowball Earth”
13 March 2018
A draft of a US government report argues that the country could reap huge economic and health benefits by cutting greenhouse gas emissions
7 February 2018
There seems to have been a surge in ultraviolet radiation during the Permian extinction 252 million years ago, and it might have left plants infertile rather than kill them
4 October 2017
Heavy metals including cadmium and lead are unusually common in sediments from the South China Sea, hinting that run-off from farms was spilling into the ocean 4000 years ago
