Mars has a surprisingly large influence on Earth’s climate NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems Compared with Earth, Mars is tiny, yet it seems to have an outsized effect on our planet’s climate cycles. Similar small planets could affect the climates of worlds beyond our solar system, which we must begin to take into account when evaluating…
Minuscule marsupial newborns that weigh less than a grain of rice have been filmed crawling towards their mother’s pouch for the first time. Unlike placental mammals, which give birth to much more developed babies, marsupials are born after extremely short gestation periods and must move to a pouch where they attach to a teat and…
Regular sauna sessions can have physical benefits, but what does heat therapy to your brain? gpointstudio/Getty Images I’m already a devoted cold-water swimmer, and last year I wrote about its benefits for the brain. But I’ve started seeing more and more written about heat therapy and its neurological perks. And while the evidence is only…
I was so excited for my first job after university that even the physical assessment – required for my work as a field geologist – came with a certain thrill. That was until the doctor glanced at my chart and told me to lose 10 to 15 pounds. The proof, he said, was my body…
We all struggle with self-control sometimes. We tell ourselves only one more piece of chocolate, one more glass of wine, one more episode of a binge-worthy series before bed, but then carry on regardless. But who, or what, even is this “self” engaging in this push and pull, before giving in to temptation? The cells…
Guy Crittenden/Getty Images Time crystals are an oddity of quantum physics, but new calculations show that these bizarre materials could be useful for building very accurate clocks. All crystals are defined by repetition – conventional crystals are made from atoms arranged in repeating patterns, and time crystals have a repeating structure in time. If you…
Recent findings have given us a new understanding of when the earliest digging and hunting tools arose RAUL MARTIN/MSF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. When writing headlines for stories about human evolution, the favourite…
Climate change has already led to more frequent disasters, such as the recent floods in Mozambique Associated Press/Alamy More than a decade on from the 2015 Paris climate conference, it is hard not to feel that we have, at best, been treading water on climate action. Sure, there are plenty more electric vehicles on the…
A vehicle battery factory in Guangxi, China Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images Used electric vehicle batteries could meet two-thirds of China’s grid storage needs, charging up when renewable energy is plentiful and disbursing electricity when demand outstrips supply. Renewable energy generation slackens when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, which can lead to…
Solar geoengineering could save the ice sheets – but stopping it could be catastrophic Martin Zwick/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Solar geoengineering could be even more costly than unabated global warming if it is cut off suddenly, leading to a “termination shock” of rapidly rebounding temperatures. As the rate of greenhouse gas emissions continues…
