Eurasian reed warblers don’t just get a sense of direction from Earth’s magnetic field – they can also calculate their coordinates on a mental map

Strange solids called temporal metamaterials finally make it possible to investigate the controversial idea of quantum friction – and push special relativity to its limits

Climate change means extreme heat will become the norm for millions across the world. We joined an experiment in the Saudi Arabian desert designed to find out what that means for our brains and bodies

Our arm of the Milky Way is filled with older, metal-rich stars. New research suggests these might provide the best conditions for life to form on their planets

Some people find the scale of the universe existentially frightening, but here's why you should take it as a source of comfort

To even out the intermittent power supply from wind and solar, we need to build vast energy storage facilities. It turns out the best solution might be cheap, simple ideas like heating bricks and lifting weights

There are secrets aplenty in a pot of honey – from information about bees' "micro-bee-ota" to DNA from the environment – that can help us fight food fraud and even monitor shifts in climate

For decades, the oceans have absorbed much of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases. The latest observations suggest they are reaching their limits, so how worried should we be?

Surrounding ourselves with greenery can do wonders for our physical and mental wellbeing. Kathy Willis reveals just what kinds of plants are best for our brains and bodies, and why

Promising new vaccines are designed to be given to patients at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. If they perform well in clinical trials, they have the potential to one day rid society of dementia

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

They fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes microglia go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for brain conditions including Alzheimer's

Male pattern baldness could soon be a thing of the past, with new hair loss treatments beginning to show tantalising results

Snoring is often viewed as harmless, at least to the snorer, but we are now uncovering its potentially serious effects on cardiovascular health. And finding ways to stop is surprisingly challenging

Understanding the “effort paradox” can help you reshape your relationship to exertion so that you commit to those hard but truly meaningful activities

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

Cases of prostate cancer are surging alarmingly around the world. Thankfully, we are developing more accurate tests that can catch the condition early

What life is and how the mind works fall within the compass of one bold concept. But critics say that by attempting to explain everything, it may end up explaining nothing

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

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

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

A solar energy absorber that uses quartz to trap heat reached 1050°C in tests and could offer a way to decarbonise the production of steel and cement

Experiments show that effect doesn’t always follow cause in the weird world of subatomic particles, offering fresh clues about the quantum origins of space-time

Fractals are common in nature because of the surprisingly simple way they are made. Mathematically, they also help us make sense of complexity and chaos – and maybe even quantum weirdness

From the vastness of the universe to the infinitesimal particles that comprise it, extremes of scale defy comprehension – and present a problem for physicists seeking a unified theory of everything

Strange solids called temporal metamaterials finally make it possible to investigate the controversial idea of quantum friction – and push special relativity to its limits

Quantum light is key to futuristic quantum technologies, but researchers have been creating it in the same way for 60 years – now liquid crystals offer an easier way to produce it

A set of mathematical equations can help turn apparently random observations into a clock – and then measure its accuracy

Working with a tiny cantilever, physicists managed to violate the second law of thermodynamics, using less energy than expected to change the cantilever’s motion

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 weird quantum phenomenon called delocalisation has been measured for a 100-nanometre glass bead, helping reveal where the boundary lies between quantum and classical physics

To determine an object’s quantum properties, you may only need to measure how it exchanges heat with its environment, without touching the object itself

Entangled particles of light can transmit holographic images that can be selectively erased, allowing for secure communications that can also be deleted

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

Researchers used a collection of charged atoms to create a quantum superposition of an exotic type of defect

The symbols and mathematical operations used in the laws of physics follow a pattern that could reveal something fundamental about the universe

A typically fragile quantum superposition has been made to last exceptionally long, and could eventually be used as a probe for discovering new physics

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

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

Shapes created by vortices in water often fall apart, but an odd quantum fluid made from ultracold atoms could support vortex knots that never lose their knottiness

Olivier Grunewald took this image of the Icelandic volcano's central crater filled with lava, forming a fiery lake of liquid rock

The eruption of the Shiveluch volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia on 11 April sent plumes of volcanic ash many kilometres into the air and could affect flights

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

The Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii has begun erupting, spewing volcanic gas and ash across the island

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

This photo of Tungurahua, a volcano exploding in the Ecuadorian night, comes from an illustrated book to accompany a TV series about Earth’s deep history