What anxiety actually is has puzzled scientists for decades. Now we are starting to figure out how it may arise from miscommunication between the body and the brain

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

Many fear that voters are being manipulated by political campaigns that use Facebook ads, TikTok and YouTube videos, but research reveals a more surprising story

Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have unexpected effects on the brain, opening up potential new ways to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and Alzheimer’s

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

Simple words like "force" and "particle" can mislead us as to what reality is actually like. Physicist Matt Strassler unpacks how to see things more clearly

New research is revealing that common sense is a lot more idiosyncratic than we thought, with important implications for tackling political polarisation and the future of AI

A new diet based on research into the body's ageing process suggests you can increase your life expectancy by up to 20 years by changing what, when and how much you eat

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

We're finally pinning down the mechanisms that drive obsessive-compulsive disorder, revealing a complex combination of imbalanced brain networks, the immune system and even gut microbes

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

Neuroscientists have been surprised to discover that the human brain is teeming with microbes, and we are beginning to suspect they could play a role in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's

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

Could the universe's missing matter be hiding in a "dark" extra dimension? We now have simple ways to test this outlandish idea - and the existence of extra dimensions more generally

Friends who blow hot and cold put more strain on your physical and mental health than enemies. Here's how to spot them and handle them

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

As more of us take up vaping and concerns rise about the long-term effects, we now have enough data to get a grip on the health impact – and how it compares to smoking

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

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

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

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

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

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

From seed oils to olive oil, we now have an overwhelming choice of what to cook with. Here’s how they all stack up, according to the scientific evidence

From nuclear strikes to giant spikes, discover the systems in place to prevent a collision and test your decision-making to see if you could avoid a catastrophic impact

The controversies surrounding football’s video assistant referee (VAR) system highlight our troubled relationship with uncertainty – and point to potential solutions

Claudia de Rham has spent much of her life dedicated to unravelling the true nature of gravity, thinking deeply about gravitons, the hypothetical carrier of this enigmatic force

Claudia de Rham thinks that gravitons, hypothetical particles thought to carry gravity, have mass. If she’s right, we can expect to see “rainbows” in ripples in space-time

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

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

Two important barriers to a stable, powerful fusion reaction have been leapt by an experiment in a small tokamak reactor, but we don’t yet know if the technique will work in larger devices

The Large Hadron Collider is testing entanglement in a whole new energy range, probing the meaning of quantum theory – and the possibility that an even stranger reality lies beneath

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

A practical superconductor would transform the efficiency of electronics. After decades of hunting, several key breakthroughs are inching us very close to this coveted prize

Subatomic particles can appear to instantly influence one another, no matter how far apart they are. These days, that isn't a source of mystery – it's a fact of the universe and a resource for new technologies

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

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

One way to explain why time only moves forward is the quantum arrow of time, and it has major implications for both the universe's early period and its eventual demise

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

Fictional portrayals of parallel universes are fun to explore, but the scientific view of the multiverse looks very different

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

Two types of fusion reactor called tokamaks and stellarators both have drawbacks – but a new design combining parts from both could offer the best of both worlds

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

It should be possible to combine several quantum states, each with almost no energy, to create a single quantum state containing unexpectedly energy-rich regions

ITER, a €20 billion nuclear fusion reactor under construction in France, will now not switch on until 2035 - a delay of 10 years. With smaller commercial fusion efforts on the rise, is it worth continuing with this gargantuan project?

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