Last year’s marine heatwaves saw an unprecedented decline in the growth of phytoplankton and algae, which many animals in the oceans depend on for food

For decades, planetary scientists have been trying to understand the origins of two colossal geological anomalies inside our planet. New insights suggest they could be leftovers from a cosmic collision

Photographer Diane Tuft has documented how global warming is affecting bodies of water around the world

Long feted by fossil hunters and geologists, if UNESCO recognises the extraordinary rock formation at Madygen in Kyrgyzstan, it will soon be a player on the world stage

In an ongoing swarm of earthquakes that began hitting Japan in 2020, the shifting weight of surface water may have spurred the shaking

Taylor Roades's images of a river in north-west Alaska that has turned orange because of global warming have won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo competition

A documentary film about three young survivors of super-typhoon Odette, a tropical cyclone that hit the Philippines in 2021, wins the New Scientist Editors Award at Earth Photo 2024

Exhausted by today's political and environmental instability, Annalee Newitz investigated what a future Earth might look like. Get ready for green mining, soft cities and robo-taxis

Sea-floor nodules raise oxygen levels in the deep ocean, suggesting they may have a valuable role in ecosystems and adding to concerns about the impact of deep-sea mining

Amazing images of an open-air library, underground lab and design museum show the reincarnation of dead mines, captured in a new book, 102 Things to Do With a Hole in the Ground

The dynamics of how plants and animals change Earth is central to this last book in a trilogy by Other Minds author and "scuba-diving philosopher" Peter Godfrey-Smith

A scientific drilling ship has burrowed further into Earth’s mantle than ever before, obtaining new clues about the processes that feed oceanic volcanoes and the possible origins of life

Pascal Maitre's photos from the Democratic Republic of Congo detail the problems arising as demand for cobalt grows

After over a year of record-high global sea temperatures, the equatorial Atlantic is cooling off more quickly than ever recorded, which could impact weather around the world

Quartz crystals produce electricity when they are deformed by mechanical stress, which may explain how enormous chunks of gold can form in inert rock

Seismologists were mystified by a strange signal that persisted for nine days in 2023 – now its source has been identified as a standing wave caused by a landslide in Greenland

A ring of asteroid debris could have orbited Earth for tens of millions of years, and perhaps even have altered the planet's climate

A sprawling research program aims to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting data at the chaotic interface of ocean and atmosphere

El Niño and La Niña cycles driven by ocean temperatures in the Pacific can influence weather in the North Atlantic 12 months later – a finding that could improve long-range forecasts

A story passed down in folklore led scientists to evidence of an 8-metre tsunami that hit an island in Hawaii hundreds of years ago

In the western US, the average maximum growth rate of fires has more than doubled over the past two decades

A specialised algorithm could help autonomous vehicles track hidden objects, such as a pedestrian, a bicycle or another vehicle concealed behind a parked car

Antibiotics can reduce diversity in the gut microbiome, raising the risk of infections that cause diarrhoea - and the effects may last years

Asteroids that regularly fly between Earth, Venus and Mars could provide radiation shielding for human missions to explore neighbouring planets

A fossil of a tadpole from Argentina is 161 million years old - and isn't that different from some modern species

Most ingredients touted as the key to better health fail to live up to the hype but fibre bucks this trend, with benefits for the whole body, not just the gut

Scientists used AI to transform tourist photos into a 3D digital map of Antarctic penguin colonies – even as researchers debate whether to harness or discourage tourism in this remote region

Thanks to artificial intelligence, understanding animals may be closer than we think. But we may not like what they are going to tell us, says RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood

An off-the-shelf millimetre wave sensor can pick out the tiny vibrations made by a smartphone's speaker, enabling an AI model to transcribe the conversation, even at a distance in a noisy room

Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have revealed that a complete skeleton found in a 2nd-century cemetery is made up of bones from many people spanning thousands of years – but we don’t know who assembled it or why

Fewer lakes are freezing over each winter compared with past years, posing environmental and economic consequences around the world

The infinite monkey theorem states that illiterate primates could write great literature with enough time, but the amount of time needed is much longer than the lifespan of the universe

People conceived during the UK's 1940s and 50s sugar rationing have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure than those conceived after rationing ended

The health benefits of fermented food and drink have long been touted, but firm evidence in favour of kombucha, sauerkraut and kefir is surprisingly elusive

Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical imaging, cooling systems and even nuclear reactors

Soil is full of an uncountable number of viruses, and scientists are only beginning to understand just how substantial their role in the carbon cycle may be

Inside a hunk of a material called a semimetal, scientists have uncovered signatures of bizarre particles that sometimes move like they have no mass, but at other times move just like a very massive particle

A new study amplifies the horror of an excellent series about the doomed Franklin expedition. The Terror is a worthy tribute to the lost sailors, says Bethan Ackerley

DNA analysis suggests Pando, a quaking aspen in Utah with thousands of stems connected by their roots, is between 16,000 and 81,000 years old

The focus is on finance at the UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, this month, but countries are a long way from any kind of consensus

A surprising reversal of our usual understanding of the second law of thermodynamics shows that it may be possible for heat to move in the “wrong” direction, flowing from a cold area to a warm one

Zinc nanoparticles, a common sunscreen ingredient, can make plants more resilient to climate change – in a surprising way

The British Heart Foundation’s Reflections of Research competition showcases beautiful images captured by researchers studying heart and circulatory disease

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water

Experts predict that the number of cancer cases around the world will skyrocket, resulting in millions more fatalities by 2050

This year’s average global temperature is almost certain to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial times – a milestone that should spur urgent action, say climate scientists

Chronic pain has increased among adults in the US since 2019, which could be due to a rise in sedentary lifestyles or reduced access to healthcare amid covid-19 restrictions

Averting an asteroid strike will need many of the same skills we must hone to tackle climate change and future pandemics

We are living in a vaccine-hesitant moment, with conspiracy theories thriving on social media. We need to push back, says Simon Williams

Our Future Chronicles column explores an imagined history of inventions and developments yet to come. In our latest glimpse into the near future, Rowan Hooper tells how seaweed was a game changer when it came to getting carbon out of the atmosphere in the 2030s