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Light pollution is set to double between now and 2050

22 November 2017

The first global “light census” shows that the area affected by artificial lighting is growing by 2.2 per cent every year, posing risks to wildlife and human health

Watch this soft robot squeeze a damaged heart to keep it pumping

22 November 2017

Putting a squishy robot around the diseased chamber of a heart helps it pump while you wait for a new one - and could even rehabilitate it so you don't need one

Put your hands together to bring a dead phone back to life

22 November 2017

Elegant gloves convert wild applause into battery power, but you’ll need a clap like thunder or you won’t have the juice to call a cab after that poetry slam

Easy on the eye

22 November 2017

The remedy for cataracts involves surgery, which carries a risk of blindness. Will it be possible to devise a non-surgical cure?

First name basis

22 November 2017

My wife and I often mix up the names of our children and our grandchildren, calling our grandson by his father's name and so on. Sometimes we even switch the names of the grandchildren with those of our cats! But we never seem to mix up the sexes. Why...

Fuzzy thinking

22 November 2017

What is the function of the fuzz on the skin of a peach? And is a nectarine a bald peach or a peach a fuzzy nectarine?

Mental block

22 November 2017

My elderly uncle is in hospital with a urine infection. His capacity for normal behaviour and thought is greatly reduced and I'm told the same happens when other older people have the same kind of infection. Why is this? If I (a 43-year-old) picked up...

Feedback: Trump enlists a confederacy of dunces to run the EPA

22 November 2017

Kathleen Hartnett White is the latest nominee to struggle with science. Plus: Rick Perry's strange solution to sex crime, a gossipy gadget, and more

Can everybody on the planet all live well?

22 November 2017

In a pressured world, we need to understand that how demographic trends affect people depends on where they live, says Massimo Livi Bacci in Our Shrinking Planet