<p>The exoplanet telescope TESS revealed a distant world using an entirely different detection method than the one it was built around</p>
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<p>China’s Tianwen-2 aims to collect samples from asteroid Kamo’oalewa and return them to Earth</p>
Groundwork North East and Cumbria says the scheme will improve water quality and biodiversity
Tour de France organisers ban spectators from stage three as a wildfire hits the Pyrénées-Orientales region.
<em>Homo floresiensis</em> may have scavenged Komodo dragon leftovers instead of hunting small elephant relatives.
A TED talk and then a film, William Kamkwamba’s story of how he worked to provide his rural Malawian village with electricity has now been turned into a musical – and it mostly works, says Bethan Ackerley
The fate of the Atlantic Ocean current that keeps Europe’s climate warm depends on our carbon emissions and the rate of ice melt from Greenland, but there is a chance that a shutdown is already inevitable
<p>Bacteria send protein packages to dormant neighbors to endure antibiotic attack</p>
<p>As the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum turns 50, an expansive exhibition celebrates how art has coincided with space</p><p>Wearing a shiny silver spacesuit, Alan Shepard clutches his helmet and looks like an archetypal blue-eyed American hero. The <a href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_61.6">1961 portrait by Bruce Stevenson</a> paid tribute to the first US astronaut in space. It also planted a seed.</p><p>James Webb, the then administrator of Nasa, saw the painting and was inspired to start the space agency’s own art programme, believing that artists could bring a unique perspective to exploring the cosmos. From 1962 to 1974 it was led by <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/get-involved/art-program/a-different-perspective-remembering-james-dean-founder-of-the-nasa-art-program/">James Dean</a>, who then became the first art curator at the <a href="https://www.si.edu/museums/air-and-space-museum">Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum</a> in Washington.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jul/06/smithsonian-space-museum-exhibition">Continue reading...</a>
Our brains are large compared with other animals, so it is tempting to assume there was an evolutionary advantage to them – but that may not be true at all
<p>Some IVF clinics are using AI to perform tasks such as sperm and embryo selection, but some fertility experts question whether the technology will lead to more live births</p>
Some marathon runners and other athletes swear by beetroot juice shots, but is there evidence they really do anything for our bodies? Columnist Alice Klein investigates
Ett nytt examensarbete vid LTH har sammanställt och analyserat halterna av PFAS-ämnet trifluorättiksyra (TFA) i grund- och ytvatten i Sverige. Resultaten tyder på att halterna har...
<p>A probability puzzle</p><p>Today’s puzzle imagines a TV game show.</p><p>The compere announces that at the end of the show two people will be chosen and each placed in a separate booth.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/06/can-you-solve-it-this-tv-show-is-flipping-brilliant">Continue reading...</a>
AI companies are hiring philosophy graduates to help them understand the nature of consciousness, whether it can be replicated and how their systems can be made better and more reliable
<p>Organisation says objects consistent with ‘debris from a foreign rocket body that recently re-entered the atmosphere’ </p><p>The Australian Space Agency has said the six so-called “space balls” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/05/mysterious-debris-found-on-queensland-beaches-could-be-space-balls-and-may-contain-toxic-rocket-fuel">found in north Queensland</a> were likely from a “foreign rocket body” that had recently re-entered the atmosphere after being in orbit.</p><p>The six mysterious objects were found by the public washed ashore in the Forrest Beach area, north of Townsville, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and were suspected of containing hazardous chemicals.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/06/mysterious-space-balls-queensland-beaches-origin-source-australia">Continue reading...</a>
Conservationists hope to dramatically reduce mink numbers across Kent.
Campaigners want Les Mielles to be bought by the government and returned to nature.
Stress, dåligt väder, halsfluss, alkohol eller skärsår – det finns olika triggers som kan utlösa psoriasis. Samtidigt händer det mycket inom forskningen kring hudsjukdomen och nya...
<p>Cluster might look like a mini version of the Plough unless you grab your binoculars</p><p>In the early hours of 11 July, the waning crescent moon will be gliding past the beautiful Pleiades star cluster, which is also known as M45 or the Seven Sisters.</p><p>The chart shows the view looking east-north-east from London at 3am BST. By then, the sky will getting ready to start brightening for the coming day, so a clear, low horizon will be essential to see the pairing.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/06/starwatch-waning-crescent-moon-pairs-up-with-the-seven-sisters">Continue reading...</a>
<p>Study finds those who speak two languages have brains that appear around six years younger than those who speak one</p><p>Learning another language could slow ageing in the brain by up to 13 years, according to research.</p><p>People who speak more than one language seem to have younger brains and the more languages you speak and the earlier you speak them, the better, according to findings from a study being presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies conference in Barcelona.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/06/learning-another-language-appears-to-slow-brain-ageing-scientists-say">Continue reading...</a>
<p>Polling shows that the public supports this new technology, but the conversation must move beyond simple questions of safety</p><p>Ever since Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing technology emerged in the early 2010s, ethical questions around genetically altered humans, so-called designer babies, have become increasingly urgent. There is already a worldwide legal prohibition. No country currently allows human germline editing (meaning genetic changes to an embryo that could also be passed on to its children), and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/12/1/lsaf007/8129080">70 have laws against it</a>, including the UK. But a series of recent discoveries and a new poll suggest that scientists and the public believe gene-edited humans are likely – even desirable – in the near future.</p><p>Two new studies use base editing – a more precise next-generation Crispr tool – on human embryos to study early development or disease (this research is legal in the UK and US as long as the embryos are destroyed within 14 days). The lead author of one study, Dieter Egli, <a href="https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/study-identifies-pitfall-correcting-mutations-human-embryos-crispr">said that</a> the technology wasn’t yet ready for the clinic, but the advances would “guide responsible research to achieve its ultimate safe and effective use”. This encapsulates the view of many scientists, who believe the regulated use of germline editing to eradicate hereditary conditions is inevitable, and the main objection is around safety.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/05/the-guardian-view-on-gene-edited-humans-darker-uses-must-be-acknowledged-alongside-medical-ones">Continue reading...</a>
<p>Humans have long sought to geoengineer the Earth’s environment. <strong>Tim Flannery</strong> outlines a few of the wildest ideas from the 20th century</p><p>An increasing number of scientists think we have let the climate crisis fester for so long that our only hope to stave off ever-intensifying catastrophes is to use technological interventions. Cloud brightening, injecting sulphur into the atmosphere and the use of tiny mirrors in space – all of which might reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface – are among the concepts being promoted<strong> </strong>by entrepreneurs and governments alike. Geoengineering, they argue, is now inevitable.</p><p>Ever since the God of the Old Testament granted our species dominion over the Earth, ideas of remaking the world to better suit us have been a dominant thread in human thinking. We have for centuries toyed with grand ambitions to alter and re-form the climate and environment, many of which – in retrospect – seem doomed or absurd.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/21/sign-up-for-five-great-reads-guardian-australias-wrap-of-our-best-summer-stories">Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads</a></strong></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/06/five-outlandish-plans-to-remodel-earth-climate">Continue reading...</a>
<p>Reliance on artificial-intelligence tools degrades the abilities of physicians and software engineers, studies show</p>