In Iceland, scientists are planning to drill two boreholes to a reservoir of liquid rock. One will give us our first direct measurements of magma – the other could supercharge geothermal power

Several enormous craters left by explosions have been spotted in Siberia over the past 15 years, and a new explanation links them to hot gas – and climate change

Photographer Matjaz Krivic has been charting the effects of lithium mining on locals in the world's largest salt flat in Bolivia since 2016

An analysis of satellite observations has identified some extreme thunderstorms over the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Mexico with lightning flashes so frequent that the sky would appear continuously lit

Companies are searching all over the world for deposits of geologic hydrogen that could be used as clean fuel, and a mine in Albania could give them clues about where to look

Microbes that rapidly convert CO2 to rock could lock away the greenhouse gas in deep underground storage sites, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs

Strange volcanoes called kimberlites bring diamonds up from Earth's depths. Scientists have always struggled to understand why they switched off millions of years ago – but perhaps they didn't

The networks of fibre optic cables that criss-cross the planet could be used to better understand what’s happening inside it

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

Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada and Mexico is already worsening air quality in the US, but some signs suggest clearer skies than last year

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

See some of the top entries to this year's Mangrove Photography Awards, showing the beauty and fragility of these unique ecosystems

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

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

An analysis of crystals in lava from the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa has revealed an unknown magma reservoir within the volcano, which could extend forecasts of eruptions from minutes to months

Computer simulations of how influenza A moves through human mucus found it is ideally configured to slide through the sticky stuff on its way to infecting cells

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

Simulations suggest that when a quantum battery shares a quantum state with the device it is powering, the device can gain more charge than was stored in the battery to begin with

Diets that claim to control excess oestrogen or stress hormones are all the rage on Instagram and TikTok. They could be good for us, just not for the reasons claimed

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

A massive undertaking to map cancer tumours is providing new insights into how the disease forms, evolves and develops resistance to treatments

Our metabolism's response to food is highly idiosyncratic and there are hints that tailoring our diet to these personal differences can deliver health benefits

The US Census Bureau processes data before publishing it in order to keep personal information private – but a new approach could maintain the same privacy while improving accuracy

The Renaissance artist Michelangelo had carried out human dissections, which may have led him to include women with breast cancer in some of his pieces

Feedback digs into a baffling ad for a mobile game and identifies a new and devilish way to advertise a product online: make it as confusing as possible to encourage people to click (it worked on Feedback)

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

I have a confession to make. After taking a handful of autonomous taxi rides, I have gone from a hater to a friend of robot cars in just a few weeks, says Annalee Newitz

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

We get about a quarter of our calories from snacks and new research shows that this isn't necessarily bad for us. Done right, snacking can boost our health

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

In support of their AI ambitions, tech companies are rapidly expanding US data centres, and this growth is on track to significantly increase US gas demand by 2030

From Harlan Ellison to Haruki Murakami, via an intergalactic cooking competition, this month has plenty of science fictional treats on offer

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

Just under 5 per cent of the Wikipedia pages in English that have been published since ChatGPT's release seem to include AI-written content

Alan Turing's theories about computation seem to have a startling consequence, placing hard limits on how fast or slow any physical process in the universe can grow

A bird flu virus that has been circulating in dairy cattle for months has now been found in a pig in the US for the first time, raising the risk of the virus evolving to become more dangerous to people

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

Running, swimming, HIIT or walking – what is the best way to work out? The answer is complicated, and depends on the person, finds Grace Wade

Peaks in appetite and metabolism driven by our body's inbuilt clocks mean that eating at the wrong time can have consequences for our health and waistline

Although the COP16 summit in Colombia ended with some important agreements, countries still aren’t moving fast enough to stem biodiversity loss

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

Fibres in wet wipes and clothes often make their way into soil - and natural versions could be more damaging than synthetic ones

Experiments where vampire bats were made to run on a treadmill have revealed how they extract energy from protein in their latest blood meal

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