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Light micrograph section through the skin of a patient with epidermolysis bullosa (EB) showing cleavage of part of the epidermis. EB is a rare genetic disease of the connective tissues in the skin and mucosal membranes. In this condition, no collagen forms between the skin layers (the dermis and epidermis). This allows them to move across each other at the slightest pressure, resulting in blisters and painful sores. Hematoxylin and eosin stain. Magnification: x550 when printed at 10 centimetres wide.

First ever gene therapy gel corrects rare genetic skin condition

28 March 2022

People with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a genetic condition that causes widespread skin blistering, have been successfully treated by inserting new collagen genes into their skin

Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus) in flight, Mexico

Vampire bats adapted to drinking blood by shedding several genes

25 March 2022

Genes lost during vampire bats’ evolution may have helped them to adapt to their exclusive blood diet which is high in iron and fluid and low in calories

Proposed EU law could force WhatsApp and iMessage to work together

25 March 2022

The European Union is close to agreeing the Digital Markets Act, which would require big tech firms to open up their services to wider competition

This picture taken on March 7, 2022 shows the current condition of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland. - The Great Barrier Reef has again been hit with

Great Barrier Reef suffers first mass bleaching under cooling La Niña

25 March 2022

Corals have turned white across all four of the reef’s main areas, despite the cooling influence of the La Niña climate phenomenon, in the natural wonder's sixth mass bleaching event of modern times

Astronomers still can't agree on what counts as a planet

25 March 2022

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union came up with a new way to classify planets that famously saw Pluto downgraded. Now a new row has started as astronomers try to define exoplanets

An ostrich (Struthio camelus) on a dune against a blue sky, Kalahari desert, South Africa ; Shutterstock ID 2129799884; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Ostrich necks act as a radiator to control their head temperature

25 March 2022

Infrared images of ostrich necks show that they help the birds keep their heads cool in warm temperatures, lowering their heat stress and helping them reproduce more successfully

Shale gas drilling in Blackpool, UK in August 2017

UK chose to pay back £640,000 to fracking firms after shale gas ban

25 March 2022

The UK government imposed a moratorium on shale gas extraction in November 2019, leaving fracking firms that had paid licence fees out of pocket, but the country's oil and gas regulator decided to refund them

Rice and maize yields boosted up to 10 per cent by CRISPR gene editing

24 March 2022

It is possible to significantly boost the yield of rice and maize using CRISPR gene editing, trials in farm fields show

An artistic impression of the high-frequency retrograde (HFR) vorticity waves. These waves appear as swirling motions near the equator of the Sun. The rotation in the north is always anti-symmetric to the rotation in the southern hemisphere. These mysterious waves move in the opposite direction to the sun's rotation, which is to the right, three times faster then what is allowed by hydrodynamics alone.

Strange waves in the sun are travelling far faster than they should be

24 March 2022

Astronomers have found waves made up of eddies of plasma inside the sun, and they can’t explain why they are travelling three times faster than similar waves