20 March 2023
In his final years, Stephen Hawking tackled the question of why the universe appears fine-tuned for life. His collaborator Thomas Hertog explains the radical solution they came up with
18 October 2022
Ecologists have started to recognise the competition between younger and older generations within the same species, with some startling conclusions about nature’s requirement for mortality
15 December 2021
Instead of absorbing light, iridescent surfaces scatter it away. Many animals take advantage of this to stay cool – and we could copy the trick to make paints that keep our buildings cool
14 July 2021
To become an interplanetary species, we may have to genetically engineer ourselves to be more resilient, says geneticist Chris Mason. He has a 500-year plan for life away from Earth
17 February 2021
The blue whale, the mountain gorilla and the European bison are among the animals that have avoided extinction, showing what works to preserve the world’s wildlife
16 December 2020
Fuzzy moss balls that colonise glaciers and move in perfect unison have puzzled scientists for decades. Now, thanks to some painstaking surveillance, they are finally giving up their secrets
9 December 2020
Quantum information can never be destroyed, so some of the essence of you could live on after death – but it’s not going to help the physical you
9 December 2020
We’re slowly beginning to unpick the complex interplay of genes, environment and experience that make you who you are – and like no one else who ever existed
9 December 2020
The point when you began depends on the scale you look at and how you define a person – in one sense you’re as old as the universe, in another you’ve hardly begun at all
30 September 2020
The world's fresh waters used to teem with enormous fish. Their numbers are dwindling, but it is not too late to save the river monsters from extinction
