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What makes a white nationalist?

6 June 2018

Race-based ideologies are gaining ground across the West. Our special report delves into the white supremacist scene in the US to ask why

Bees aren't just smart, they're sensitive too

6 June 2018

Far from being mindless pollen-collecting drones, bees can solve problems, make choices and have reactions that look suspiciously like human emotions

The gene that led to the human intelligence boom has been found

1 June 2018

A gene that evolved in humans over 3 millions years ago accelerated brain growth - but it came with a serious catch

Bent bird feathers repair themselves when soaked in water

31 May 2018

Elastic fibres inside a feather can spring back to their original shape when soaked in water, helping it straighten even after being bent nearly in half

Some scorpions can hiss by rubbing themselves with ‘sandpaper’

31 May 2018

Club-tailed scorpions in the Americas make a hissing sound, warning potential predators to back off, by rubbing a “comb” against a sheet of sandpaper-like exoskeleton

Scientists turned a car into a giant flytrap to count insects

31 May 2018

The experience of having your windscreen spattered with dead insects has inspired an innovative new study designed to look at what effect traffic has on local insects

There is only one anti-shark tool for surfers that seems to work

31 May 2018

Magnetic bracelets, smelly wax, and electric field generators are all sold as shark deterrents, but only one of them halves the risk of getting munched

I'm working on a universal language to let us speak to aliens

30 May 2018

It's time to find a new way to speak across the stars, says Douglas Vakoch, head of METI, the body dedicated to messaging possible alien civilisations

Pigeons can understand probabilities - just like primates can

30 May 2018

We know that humans and some other primates can instinctively distinguish between high and low probabilities – now pigeons have shown they might share the skill