With its particles in two places at once, quantum theory strains our common sense notions of how the universe should work. But one group of physicists says we can get reality back if we just redefine its foundations

From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs

A better understanding of what happens to our bodies when we get fitter can unlock ways to speed up the journey – and it might be simpler than you think

Discoveries from the genomes of the last Neanderthals are rewriting the story of how our own species came to replace them

Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse peddles the idea that we have overlooked an extraordinary ancient civilisation. Flint Dibble explains why that is wrong, and why real archaeology is more exciting

Physicists finally know whether black holes destroy the information contained in infalling matter. The problem is that the answer hasn’t lit the way to a new understanding of space-time

The systems we use to produce food have many problems, from horrifying waste to their dependence on fossil fuels. Vaclav Smil explains how to fix them

An outlandish experiment searching for a brain network that tunes up and down the feeling of immersion is hoping to unlock the therapeutic effects of psychedelics

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

Extreme weather and a growing population is driving a food security crisis. What can we do to break the vicious cycle of carbon emissions, climate change and soaring food costs – or is it already too late?

A new equation shows a surprisingly simple relationship between pressure and the temperature needed to melt any solid substance into a liquid

Nobel prizewinning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs has died aged 94. He proposed the particle that gives other particles mass – now named the Higgs boson and discovered by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2012

The physicist Peter Higgs quietly revolutionised quantum field theory, then lived long enough to see the discovery of the Higgs boson he theorised. Despite receiving a Nobel prize, he remained in some ways as elusive as the particle that shares his name

We can’t stir ordinary solids, but one research team now claims to have stirred an extraordinary quantum “supersolid”, generating tiny vortices

To capture the clearest and most direct images of a “Wigner crystal”, a structure made entirely of electrons, researchers used a special kind of microscope and two pieces of graphene unusually free of imperfections

Researchers have used quantum light to create a magnetic field with a strength that is measured in imaginary numbers

In the 1920s, Erwin Schrödinger wrote an equation that predicts how particles-turned-waves should behave. Now, researchers are perfectly recreating those predictions in the lab

The very weak forces of attraction caused by the Casimir effect can now be used to manipulate microscopic gold flakes and turn them into a light-trapping tool

Concern over the risks of enabling nuclear weapons development is usually focused on nuclear fission reactors, but the potential harm from more advanced fusion reactors has been underappreciated

Ultra-fast pulses of laser light can be shaped into vortices similar to smoke rings – when chained together, they can carry enough information to transmit a simple image

The Linac Coherent Light Source in California fired an X-ray pulse that lasted only a few hundred billionths of a billionth of a second but carried nearly a terawatt of power

The true nature of time has eluded physicists for centuries, but a new theoretical model suggests it may only exist due to entanglement between quantum objects

Are points of infinite curvature, where general relativity breaks down, always hidden inside black holes? An audacious attempt to find out is shedding light on the mystery of quantum gravity

An experiment with a robot and gelatine determined that 65-micrometre-thick paper is the most prone to slicing our skin – but it can also make for a handy recyclable knife

The atoms within quasicrystals are arranged in repeating forms, but unlike ordinary crystals they have more complex symmetry. It turns out this makes them perfect for producing mazes

The gamma ray burst known as GRB221009A is the biggest explosion astronomers have ever glimpsed and we might finally know what caused the blast

A subatomic particle called the muon caused waves when its experimental behaviour didn't align with a prediction based on the standard model. A new calculation might resolve the discrepancy – but some particle physicists are sceptical

Commercially available quantum technology could let stock traders coordinate decisions to buy or sell nearly instantaneously using a technique called “quantum telepathy”

Atoms tunnelling through a quantum battery could charge it and also keep it from losing energy, which could give an advantage over conventional batteries

With its particles in two places at once, quantum theory strains our common sense notions of how the universe should work. But one group of physicists says we can get reality back if we just redefine its foundations

The direction of cause and effect was brought into question for quantum objects more than a decade ago, but new calculations may offer a way to restore it

In 2022, physicists were excited by hints that something was wrong with our understanding of the universe - but new results have put that in doubt

Particles of light can spend "negative time" passing through a cloud of extremely cold atoms – without breaking the laws of physics

Physicists finally know whether black holes destroy the information contained in infalling matter. The problem is that the answer hasn’t lit the way to a new understanding of space-time

Marie Curie redefined the role of women in science by training a generation of “lab daughters” to have stellar careers, shows Dava Sobel's detailed and intimate new biography, The Elements of Marie Curie

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

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

Billions of years ago, crushed quartz reacting with water could have created the conditions needed for the evolution of the photosynthetic microbes responsible for most of the oxygen now in Earth’s atmosphere

Carbon emissions within the next 50 years could lead to a tipping point where large parts of the Greenland ice sheet melt over the next 10,000 years

Semi-mythical "earthquake lights" may be accompanied by changes to Earth's magnetic field. Now researchers say these changes could be used to forecast major tremors

A link between volcanic activity and rising bubbles of low pressure in the ionosphere has now been proven, which may be why the colossal Tonga volcano eruption in 2022 disrupted satellite communications

Pressure on the San Andreas fault from a now-dried lake could have been sufficient to trigger past major earthquakes in California. The lake’s disappearance could explain why there have been no such quakes for nearly 300 years

Changes in the distribution of groundwater around the planet between 1993 and 2010 were enough to make Earth's poles drift by 80 centimetres

Geologists hoping to declare a new epoch dominated by humanity’s influence on Earth have chosen Crawford Lake in Canada as the location where the start of the Anthropocene is defined

An analysis of GPS data has revealed a slow and otherwise undetectable slip of tectonic plates that begins two hours before an earthquake - but detecting this in advance would require more accurate sensors

A 33-million-year-old layer of Earth's crust is laced with helium-3, which is normally only found in space. Now we might have an explanation for how it got there

The destruction of telecommunications cables during the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano in 2022 shows that underwater debris currents can travel at 122 kilometres per hour

An independent task force formed by NASA to look into unidentified anomalous phenomena found no evidence of alien craft, and suggests that if we want to find proof of visitors we need better data

Understanding how the world’s largest-known collection of pink diamonds came to the surface in Australia around 1.3 billion years ago could help us find hidden deposits elsewhere in the world