Physics A black hole bomb – an idea first proposed in 1969 – has now been realised in the lab as a toy model made from a rotating cylinder and magnetic coils. Studying the bomb could help us better understand real black holes. 25 April 2025 Feed a black hole enough energy and you could create an explosionArt Furnace/Shutterstock Physicists have built the first ever black hole bomb, a long-theorised phenomenon where energy is boosted by a black hole and trapped by surrounding mirrors until an explosion occurs. Thankfully, this version is just a safe toy model rather than using a real black hole in space, but as the physical principles are identical, studying it could help researchers better understand how real black holes spin. The idea of extracting energy from a black hole was first proposed in 1969 by physicist Roger Penrose. He…

Volcano eruptions can influence the climate by releasing sulphur dioxideShutterstock/Daniel Lopez Toriello The largest volcanic eruption in human history resulted in a few years of warm weather, according to an analysis of ancient sediments, and not a severe volcanic winter as some researchers had thought. The Toba supervolcano, located on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, erupted 74,000 years ago, shooting thousands of cubic kilometres of volcanic material into the atmosphere. “There is no doubt that the Toba super-eruption was colossal,” says Michael Petraglia…

Disinformation can be especially prevalent on social media sitesStefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has terminated government research grants for studying misinformation and disinformation. The defunding comes at a time when propaganda and scams fuelled by the latest artificial intelligence technologies are flooding social media networks, and tech companies are abandoning content moderation efforts and eliminating fact-checking teams. The grant cancellations began on 18 April when the NSF published a statement saying it would not support research on misinformation or disinformation “that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights…

Encrypted messages could be hidden within a normal-looking conversation on social mediaTero Vesalainen/iStockphoto/G​etty Images Secret messages can be hidden inside fake conversations generated by AI chatbots. The technique could give people a way to communicate online without arousing the suspicion of oppressive governments. When messages are encrypted for secure transmission, the resulting cipher text – an unusual string of garbled characters – stands out like a sore thumb. That is fine if you are keeping secrets in a country where secrets are allowed, but under brutal dictatorships, this could land a citizen in hot water. Even the UK government recently …

Sharing a quantum computer could put you at risk of hackingBlackJack3D/Getty Images Hackers may be able to “vandalise” other people’s results on a quantum computer, say researchers, who warn that the problem will only get worse as devices become larger and host more users simultaneously, unless manufacturers plug the security gap. Sharing access to expensive computing hardware is a common practice, whether on classical supercomputers or exotic quantum chips. Classical devices often run multiple programs for many different users at once, but there are security measures in place to prevent one user from affecting another.

Optical fibre connected to a dilution refrigeratorHarsh Rathee/Department of Physics Photographs accompanying most scientific papers might politely be called “functional”. But this collection of images from Imperial College London’s research photography competition proves that research can be beautiful. The top image, by Harsh Rathee of the physics department, shows an optical fibre connected to a dilution refrigerator, a device that creates a temperature a thousandth that of the vacuum of space. By observing how light interacts with sound waves at this incredibly low temperature, researchers can explore the unique properties of matter at the quantum level. Liquid GoldAnna Curran/Department of Mathematics The above entry is from Anna Curran of the maths department, who won a judges’ choice prize in the PhD student category. Curran’s research focuses on mathematically modelling the effect of molecules called surfactants, which reduce surface tension in fluids. It is this phenomenon that allows bubbles to hold their shape within the ring. “Surfactants are all around us – in our soaps and detergents, they are responsible for breaking down dirt and bacteria, but their effects also underpin many biological, medical and engineering processes, from inkjet printing to self-cleaning surfaces to the treatment of premature babies’ lungs,” says Curran. Cerebral organoid, or “mini-brain”Alex Kingston/Department of Life Sciences Pictured above is an image from Alex Kingston of the life sciences department. It depicts part of a cerebral organoid, also known as a “mini-brain”. These lab-grown collections of cells are a microcosm of the earliest stages of human brain development. Topics:

Reindeer fur would have helped ancient humans endure the climate of the last glacial maximumEsteban De Armas/Shutterstock An open-air site in Austria occupied by humans during the coldest part of the last glacial period may have been dedicated to hunting reindeer for pelts, showing how people adapted to extreme temperatures in Europe. The site, called Kammern-Grubgraben, was heavily occupied from around 24,000 to 20,000 years ago and contains the largest abundance of tools, ornaments, artefacts and stone structures in Europe during the cold and unforgiving most recent glacial maximum. At this time, the mean annual temperature…

“Going completely car-free can cut personal emissions by 30 per cent.”Richard Baker/In Pictures/Getty Images I have been doing a lot of work recently on how narrow corporate interests are a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to making the changes necessary to stop the destruction of the environment. A few weeks back, I reviewed A Climate of Truth by Mike Berners-Lee, which makes a powerful case that dishonesty and obfuscation by climate-trashing industries are a major cause of environmental destruction. It reminded me of an interview I did a few years ago with Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes, who has spent…

People in the US are reading for pleasure less and less, despite it being linked to better sleep, improved mental health and even a longer life

A 110-million-year-old fossil of the hell ant Vulcanidris cratensisAnderson Lepeco At more than 110 million years old, a fossil excavated in Brazil is the oldest undisputed ant fossil ever discovered. The finding adds to evidence that the first ants evolved on the supercontinent of Gondwana in the southern hemisphere before spreading across the rest of the world. “We have evidence they were in South America, they were in Gondwana, during their early evolution,” says Anderson Lepeco at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Lepeco came across the fossil in a large collection delivered to the university’s zoological museum. The specimens all came from the Crato Formation in north-east Brazil, which formed during the Lower Cretaceous Period. He immediately suspected this fossil was from an extinct group of insects called hell ants. “That head shape was similar to one species we found in Burmese amber,” he says. “This gave me the hint.” Hell ants are particularly interesting because they represent a transitional “stem lineage”, says Lepeco – they are more closely related to the wasp-like common ancestor of all ants than to the species alive today, although they did have ant-like social structures. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter When the fossil was 3D scanned, this revealed other characteristics that identified it as a hell ant. For instance, it had forklift-like mandibles that may have enabled it to skewer other insects. In fact, it is this gruesome feature that gave the hell ant group its name. The researchers named the new hell ant species Vulcanidris cratensis, in recognition of the Brazilian entomologist Maria Aparecida Vulcano. Based on the rock strata in which it was found, the researchers suspect the fossil is about 113 million years old, 13 million years older than the previous oldest known ant fossil. “Before our new fossil, the earliest ants known as fossils were from France and Myanmar,” says Lepeco. Finding such an ancient hell ant in South America aligns with genomic evidence suggesting ants first evolved in the southern hemisphere before dispersing throughout much of the rest of the world and establishing the dominant ecological role they maintain today. Journal referenceCurrent Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.03.023 Topics:

Bone collector caterpillars from the Waianae mountain range in Oahu, HawaiiDaniel Rubinoff et al. 2025 The newly described “bone collector” caterpillar species disguises itself with the body parts of dead insects so that it can live among spiders and poach their prey. This is the only caterpillar known to use such grisly camouflage or have spiders as roommates – and it’s a carnivore and a cannibal to boot. Daniel Rubinoff at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and his colleagues discovered the caterpillar while hiking the Waianae mountains in Oahu more than two decades ago. They were searching for other species in the same genus, Hyposmocoma, also known as Hawaiian fancy case caterpillars. “We see this little, tiny sac covered in bug bits, and honestly, we weren’t sure what it was,” says Rubinoff. “And then we take it back [to the lab], and we realise there is a little caterpillar in there.” The newly described species of Hyposmocoma – which has not yet received a scientific name – lives on cobwebs inside tree trunks, among rocks and other enclosed spaces. It is about the length of a fingernail and feeds on insects trapped in spider webs. “Only 0.13 per cent of all caterpillars on the planet are carnivorous,” says Rubinoff. “So it is incredibly hard for a caterpillar to evolve to eat meat.” The bone collector avoids becoming prey itself with a macabre method: adorning its silken case with fragments of dead insects and the spider’s moulted exoskeleton. The critter carefully sizes up each body part – which might include ant heads, beetle abdomens or fly wings – before weaving it into its disguise. The bone collector caterpillar (left) uses its grisly disguise to live safely with a spider (right)Daniel Rubinoff et al. 2025 “That’s the only way to survive, probably, living with a spider – by covering yourself in bits of the spider’s own shed skin and its past meals,” says Rubinoff. This leaves the caterpillar smelling and tasting more like a bag of trash than a juicy snack to its arachnid housemate. After about two to three months, it then metamorphoses into a moth smaller than a grain of rice. If the bone collector’s accessorising weren’t gnarly enough, this caterpillar is also a cannibal. The researchers learned this after placing two of the larvae in the same cage, leading to the larger one feasting on its smaller, weaker brethren. This is why you only ever see one bone collector per spider web, says Rubinoff. The researchers have found just 62 of these critters across more than 150 field surveys conducted over roughly 22 years, all within the same 15 square kilometres of the Waianae mountain range. Genetic analysis indicates its lineage is about 3 million years older than the island of Oahu, meaning it was once more widespread. “Since the arrivals of humans in a place like this, we’ve lost lots of native species,” says Rubinoff. “It is both a miracle that we were able to find [the bone collector], and really sad that they are so restricted to this one spot.” Journal reference:Science DOI: 10.1126/science.ads4243 Topics:

Illustration of the exoplanet K2-18bNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Apparent signs of alien life on the exoplanet K2-18b may just be statistical noise, according to a new analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope. On 17 April, Nikku Madhusudhan at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues made the stunning claim that K2-18b, a super-Earth 124 light years away, showed strong evidence of an atmosphere containing dimethyl sulphide, a gas that on Earth is only produced by living things. But Jake Taylor at…

Tabular icebergs are breaking away from the ice shelves of AntarcticaJames Kirkham City-sized icebergs once drifted past the coast of Britain when ice sheets covering much of northern Europe were in rapid retreat about 18,000 to 20,000 years ago. James Kirkham at the British Antarctic Survey and his colleagues have found the preserved scour marks these giants made as their undersides ploughed through seafloor sediments. The long, comb-like features are buried under mud in the North Sea but are still visible in the seismic survey data collected to search for oil and gas. “We can estimate from the extent of the scours and what is known about ancient sea levels that these bergs were probably five to a few tens of kilometres wide and perhaps a couple of hundred metres thick – icebergs on the scale of a mid-sized British city,” says Kirkham. In Antarctica, tabular or table-top icebergs are a spectacular sight. Some, like the recent behemoths known as A23a and A68a, would rival even small US states in terms of area. They calve from ice shelves – the wide, floating protrusions of glaciers that flow off the land into the ocean. The recognition that tabular icebergs once existed in the North Sea is therefore a clear indication that the seaward margins of a British and Irish ice sheet also had ice shelves. And it means there could be some lessons for future Antarctic decline, says Kirkham. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter In the North Sea, the straight tramlines of the big icebergs are over-written by squiggly troughs made by the narrow keels of much smaller ice blocks. In other words, there’s a “regime change” in which large icebergs are replaced by countless small icebergs as the ice shelves shatter in response to rising temperatures, says Kirkham. Radiocarbon dating of the sediments shows this shift occurring over a period from 20,000 to 18,000 years ago. The observation casts doubt on the idea that the calving of mega-bergs like A23a and A68a might herald the widespread collapse of Antarctica’s ice shelves. Emma MacKie at the University of Florida has tracked tabular iceberg size in satellite data from the mid-1970s onwards and found that the trend is essentially flat. “James’s research underscores mine, which is that large calving events are not necessarily a sign of instability or cause for alarm,” says MacKie. “Rather, ice shelves disintegrate via death by a thousand cuts. We should be concerned when we stop seeing the large calving events.” Journal reference:Nature Communications DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58304-5 Topics:Antarctica

The now-extinct Tocharian language on a scrap of parchmentSakkmesterke/Alamy Proto Laura Spinney (HarperCollins (UK) Bloomsbury Publishing (US, 13 May)) A new book by Laura Spinney is rather tantalisingly called Proto, begging the question: proto-what? Prototype, the earliest version of a technology? Protoplasm, the stuff of our cells? Or even protoplanet, a small hunk of space rock with a big future ahead? The answer, in fact, sits above and across those words: Proto-Indo-European. This is the great original language from which English, among many other tongues, both alive and dead, derives. As Spinney puts it: “Almost every second person on…

Columnist and Mind Most supplements that claim to help your brain have never been thoroughly tested, but one has convinced even the most discerning scientists of its worth, finds columnist Helen Thomson 24 April 2025 There are many dietary supplements available but what does the evidence say on brain health?JSB Co./Unsplash Alongside my morning yoghurt and cereal, I’m taking an increasing number of supplements. The long brown ones contain lion’s mane, a mushroom supposedly good for anxiety. The tiny round one is vitamin D – in cloudy London I feel eternally deficient without this. The chewy one? A multivitamin. The powder is creatine, which my friend swears by for keeping brain fog at bay. Then there’s collagen, best known as a protein vital to youthful-looking skin, because, well, we all live in…

Lyme disease can spread to people via ticksHeiko Barth/Shutterstock An antibiotic that is commonly used to treat pneumonia rid mice of Lyme disease at a dose 100 times lower than the standard antibiotic therapy. This smaller dose, combined with the drug’s targeted action against the infection, meant the animals’ gut microbiomes were largely unaffected. Lyme disease is caused by bacteria in the genus Borrelia that mainly spread among birds and small rodents, but people can get infected via the bites of ticks that have fed on the blood of such animals. Infections commonly lead to flu-like symptoms and a “bull’s-eye” rash. If untreated, they can cause serious long-term complications, such as fatigue and aches. Standard treatment involves taking a high dose of the antibiotic doxycycline twice daily for up to three weeks. This stops bacteria from making the proteins they need to survive, but it doesn’t selectively target Borrelia species. “It wreaks havoc on the normal [gut] microbiome,” says Brandon Jutras at Northwestern University in Illinois. Looking for a more selective alternative, Jutras and his colleagues first tested how effectively more than 450 antibiotics, all approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, could kill Borrelia burgdorferi – the most common type of Lyme disease-causing bacteria – in a lab dish. They then assessed how the top-performing drugs affected the growth of harmless or beneficial bacteria that are commonly found in the guts of people and mice, such as certain strains of Escherichia coli. This revealed that piperacillin, an antibiotic that is related to penicillin and is commonly used to treat pneumonia, most selectively targeted B. burgdorferi. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday. Sign up to newsletter Next, the researchers injected 46 mice with B. burgdorferi. Three weeks later, they treated the animals with varying doses of either doxycycline or piperacillin twice a day for one week. The researchers found no signs of infection in the mice that received either a high dose of doxycycline or as little as a 100-fold lower dose of piperacillin. They also analysed stools from the mice before and after the antibiotic treatment and found that low-dose piperacillin had almost no effect on the levels of bacteria other than B. burgdorferi in the gut, whereas high-dose doxycycline heavily altered the gut microbiome. This is probably because a lower dose of antibiotic has less of an effect on gut microbial diversity, and because of piperacillin’s targeted action. “With piperacillin, we found it’s targeting a particular protein that’s essential for B. burgdorferi, but not other bacteria, to survive, so it’s remarkably efficient at killing this Lyme disease agent at low concentrations,” says Jutras. This may help to preserve a healthy gut microbiome, which has been linked to a long, disease-free life. But mice can respond differently to antibiotics than people do, says John Aucott at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. For instance, they often break down the drugs faster, which can alter their effectiveness. Jutras’s team hopes to test piperacillin in human Lyme disease trials within the next few years. Journal reference:Science Translational Medicine DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adr2955 Topics:

Peanuts are one of the most common foods people are allergic tonafterphoto/Shutterstock Adults with peanut allergy reduced their risk of reactions by eating a little peanut protein every day as part of a trial. This approach is already approved in the US for children with the condition. Peanut allergy occurs when the immune system mistakenly identifies proteins in the legume as a threat. It responds by producing more IgE antibodies, which are a vital part of the immune response, but go into overdrive with allergic reactions. As a result, inflammation ramps up, causing symptoms such as swelling, itching and vomiting. In extreme cases, it can lead to anaphylactic shock, a life-threatening reaction that can affect someone’s breathing or their heart rate. Until recently, the only solution was to avoid peanuts, but an intervention called oral immunotherapy was approved for children with the allergy in the US in 2020. This involves training the immune system to tolerate the allergen by exposing it to gradually increasing doses of peanut proteins. However, it was unclear if the approach also worked in adults. “Most of the life of a peanut allergic individual is spent as an adult, but we’ve had no treatment to reduce their underlying reactivity to peanuts,” says Stephen Till at King’s College London. “There are some grounds for suspecting that adults would be more hard to desensitise than children because your immune system is easier to modify when you’re younger.” To fill this knowledge gap, Till and his colleagues recruited 21 adults with peanut allergy. At the start of the study, the participants were only able to eat up to an eighth of a peanut, on average, before having an allergic reaction. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday. Sign up to newsletter The team had each participant eat the protein equivalent of one 40th of a peanut every day for two weeks. This dose was slightly increased every two weeks for several months, until they could safely and consistently eat the protein equivalent of four large peanuts every day for a month. Three participants dropped out of the study due to allergic reactions, while three others left due to reasons unrelated to the treatment. “This dropout number is acceptable for this kind of treatment,” says Cezmi Akdis at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research. The remaining 15 participants took part in an allergy test where they ate increasing doses of peanut protein under the researchers’ supervision. All but one of them was able to eat the equivalent of five peanuts without having an allergic reaction. In another part of the experiment, the team analysed blood samples collected from the participants before and after they received oral immunotherapy. This revealed that the intervention caused them to have higher levels of IgG antibodies, which counteract the effects of IgE antibodies. “It is very promising,” says Akdis. “This approach could mean that adults with peanut allergy can be relieved of the anxiety of eating food contaminated with peanuts.” But this was a relatively early-stage trial, and larger ones are needed to verify the results and establish how long the protection lasts, he says. “I’d expect you’ll need to take daily or regular doses of peanuts in the long term to maintain the tolerance to the allergen,” says Akdis. “People take pills every day, so I think people affected by peanut allergies may well be fine adhering to this sort of method.” You should never try to treat allergies without medical supervision. Journal reference:Allergy DOI: doi.org/10.1111/all.16493 Topics:allergies

Climate change can exacerbate droughtsSOPA Images Limited / Alamy Are fossil fuel companies directly responsible for the climate change caused by burning their products – and if so, can they be sued for damages? Yes, say researchers who have developed a new method for tying greenhouse gas emissions from individual firms to specific climate-related economic harm. “I think the answer is unequivocally, yes,” says Justin Mankin at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. His technique, developed with his colleague Christopher Callahan at Stanford University in California, links each of the world’s five largest fossil fuel companies to a loss in…

We know from ancient texts that Roman gladiators fought lions, but physical evidence has been lacking until nowDEA PICTURE LIBRARY/De Agostini via Getty Images Bite marks on the pelvis of a man who lived in Roman-occupied Britain were probably made by a lion in gladiatorial combat. The findings provide the first physical evidence that people battled animals in gladiator arenas in Europe, says Tim Thompson at Maynooth University in Ireland. Gladiator spectacles involving wild cats, bears, elephants, and other animals are frequently described in Roman…

Allan Sanders When Michael Collins floated above the far side of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, he knew he would be remembered as the loneliest human in history. He recalled feeling unafraid, almost exultant, thinking about everything on the other side of the moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface and, beyond that, every creature on Earth and everything humanity had ever built. On his side, as Collins wrote in his memoir, was “one plus God only knows what”. A half-century later, the famously empty lunar landscape is starting to get busier. Not only are NASA and other space agencies preparing to send humans to the moon for longer periods of time, researchers around the world are working on blueprints to turn it into the most powerful astrophysics laboratory in history. This could address the deepest questions we have ever asked. How did the first stars ignite? Why has the universe evolved the way it did? Is there anyone else out there? “On the moon, we can think about concepts that, here on Earth, are completely impossible to realise,” says Jan Harms, an astronomer at the Gran Sasso Science Institute in Italy. The conditions there seem nearly purpose-built to house cutting-edge observatories that could answer some of the most perplexing questions about the cosmos. The moon’s unique peace and quiet, especially on the side that never faces Earth, could make it a portal to the history of the universe, from the first galaxies to the mysterious dark energy that stretches…

A secure quantum internet could be on the wayvs148/Shutterstock Another step towards a quantum internet has been completed, and it doesn’t require any special communications equipment. Two data centres in Germany have exchanged quantum secure information using already existing telecommunication fibres at room temperature. This is in contrast to most quantum communications, which often require cooling to extremely low temperatures to protect quantum particles from disturbances in their environment. The quantum internet, where information can be exchanged extremely securely thanks to being encoded into quantum particles of light called photons, is quickly making forays into the world outside the lab. In March, a microsatellite enabled a quantum link between ground stations in China and South Africa. A few weeks earlier, the first operating system for quantum communication networks was unveiled. Now, Mirko Pittaluga at Toshiba Europe Limited and his colleagues have sent quantum information through optical fibre between two facilities around 250 kilometres apart in Kehl and Frankfurt, Germany. The information also passed through a third station between them, a little over 150 kilometres from Frankfurt. Photons can get lost or corrupted as they traverse long distances through fibre optic cables, so large iterations of the quantum internet will require “quantum repeaters”, which will mitigate those losses. In this set-up, the midway station played a similar role, allowing the network to outperform previously tested and simpler connections between the two endpoints. In a notable improvement on previous quantum networks, the team used existing fibre, as well as devices that can be easily slotted into racks that already house traditional telecommunications equipment. This strengthens the case for the quantum internet eventually becoming a plug-and-play operation. Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. Sign up to newsletter The researchers also used photon detectors that are much less costly than those used in past experiments. Though some of those previous experiments spanned hundreds of kilometres more, the use of these detectors brings down both the cost and energy requirements of the new network, says Raja Yehia at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Spain. Prem Kumar at Northwestern University in Illinois says that using the type of quantum communication protocol they have here on commercially available equipment underscores how quantum networks are approaching practicality. “A systems engineer could look at this and see that it works,” says Kumar. However, to be fully practical, the network would have to exchange information faster, he says. Mehdi Namazi at the quantum communication start-up Qunnect in New York says this approach could be beneficial for future networks of quantum computers or quantum sensors, but it is still not as efficient as if it included a true quantum repeater. Journal reference:Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08801-w Topics:

A gene-edited grey wolf created by Colossal BiosciencesColossal Biosciences The creation of genetically modified grey wolves that are claimed to resemble extinct dire wolves has been criticised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Colossal Biosciences, a US company aiming to “de-extinct” several species with gene-editing technology, announced earlier this month that it had created three dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) by editing genes in grey wolf (Canis lupus) embryos. A statement put out by the IUCN expert group on canids – wolves…

LWM/NASA/LANDSAT/Alamy The Arctic is a land of riches – not just in its beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage, but in the kinds of commodities we value most: oil, gas, lithium, cobalt, gold and more. Yet those treasures are no good to us. As our special report on polar science reveals (see “Why vanishing sea ice at the poles is a crisis for the entire planet”), extracting the abundant resources of the Arctic for commercial gain is tricky. Trying to haul oil and gas from the region is an expensive business, even with the dubious tailwind of melting sea ice helping to clear new patches of ocean for drilling. As industry and transport gradually shift to electric and hydrogen power, oil demand will fall, making the expense ever harder to justify. It is a similar story for minerals, too. Greenland is a hotspot for in-demand materials, perhaps one reason why US President Donald Trump is aggressively pursuing its takeover. But even leaving aside Greenland’s lack of infrastructure – roads are hard to come by on this icy island – this is a risky place to invest. The landscape is changing fast as glaciers melt, revealing new, precarious coastlines that threaten landslides and tsunamis. For a hard-nosed business executive, there are easier, less hazardous places to mine Across the terrestrial Arctic, melting permafrost is destabilising existing roads, buildings and industrial sites. For a hard-nosed business executive, there are easier, less hazardous places to mine. Viewing the Arctic as a ticket to bountiful economic growth is a fool’s errand. Instead of seeing it as a region ripe for exploitation, we should treat it as a scientific wonder, while also respecting the people who live there. After all, as the fastest-changing region on Earth, it is at the vanguard of our climate future. And there is so much still to learn: how quickly might the ice disappear? How fast will sea levels rise? And what happens if and when the ice is gone? On a more positive note, researchers are pioneering ever more inventive ways to unlock these mysteries, from a new “drifting” laboratory to ultra-deep ice drills and state-of-the-art submarines. The Arctic is overflowing with opportunities for exploration and discovery. We just need to let go of the idea of monetising them. Topics:

Greater mouse-tailed bats crawl backwardsSahar Hajyahia et al. 2025 Orientating yourself in the darkness of a cave seems like a difficult task. But some bats may have an ingenious solution: using their tails. Greater mouse-tailed bats (Rhinopoma microphyllum) live in groups inside small caves where flying is challenging, so they hang from the cave’s walls and move deeper into it by crawling backwards. They manoeuvre this way in many situations, such as in response to the appearance of a predator, or when they want to find a better position in the cave. Biologists have long wondered whether these bats might use their unusually long tails as a “sensor” to navigate inside the caves, and so Yossi Yovel at Tel Aviv University in Israel and his colleagues designed two experiments to put the bats’ tails to the test. In the first experiment, the researchers recreated a setup that mimicked the interior of a cave, creating a maze with obstacles similar to the uneven, rocky terrain the bats would encounter naturally. The team measured how long it took for the bats to climb the wall while crawling backwards, and how smoothly they were able to do so, first naturally and then with their tails anaesthetised. The bats moved their tails back and forth to sense the obstacles and find their way through the maze. But when the researchers anaesthetised the bats’ tails, the flying mammals navigated the maze less smoothly and around 10 per cent more slowly. They still made it through, however, suggesting they also use other body parts to sense obstacles. “When you walk backwards, you can still feel with your body and with your legs,” says Yovel. “It’s clear that they can do it. But there was a significant reduction in performance.” Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter In the second experiment, the researchers designed a Y-shaped maze that presented two corridors with different ridged textures that the bats could feel and choose between. They used textural differences between the two corridors to teach the bats that one corridor led to a reward, while the other didn’t. Even though the textural differences were subtle – one corridor had gratings every 1.5 centimetres and one had gratings every 1 cm – the animals were able to distinguish between them. While other bat species have long tails, the researchers say this is so far the only one known to find its way in the darkness using this distinctive strategy. “I don’t think this is the general for bats with long tails,” says Yovel. But “until we test the other bats, we don’t really know”. Journal reference:iScience DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112014 Topics:animal behaviour

An artist’s impression of gas and dust around the massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728ESO/M. Kornmesser Strange X-ray pulses blasted out from a recently awakened monster black hole are the most powerful astronomers have seen, and may help explain how these cosmic behemoths emerge from their slumber. A few years ago, astronomers spotted mysterious rhythmic signals coming from a black hole. The exact cause was unclear, but because the signals appeared to have repeating elements, they were dubbed quasi periodic eruptions (QPEs). Since then, astronomers have discovered a handful of QPEs coming…

The newly discovered colony of Pavona coral in the Red SeaRed Sea Global Researchers have discovered a giant coral colony on the north-western coast of Saudi Arabia, in a part of the Red Sea that is being developed as a luxury tourist resort. The colony, a feature within a reef made up of one specific type of the tiny coral-building animal known as a polyp, is suspected to be of the species Pavona clavus and measures approximately 30 metres by 21 metres, making it probably the largest discovered in the Red Sea.

StarStarter is a game that gives points when players avoid angry faces and focus on smiley onesArcade Therapeutics People with social anxiety may find relief in a smartphone game that helps shift their attention away from intimidating or negative cues towards positive ones. Researchers found that playing it several times a week significantly reduced social anxiety scores compared with using a sham version. Brief, game-based therapies like this can fill major gaps in public access to mental health treatments, says Tracy Dennis-Tiwary at The City University of New York.

The odd effects of special relativity can be harnessed to build quantum computersYuichiro Chino/Getty Images Special relativity could be harnessed to build a novel quantum computer, and creating it this way could let us use machine learning to deepen our understanding of the quantum realm. Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity describes how moving at close to the speed of light would affect travellers’ experience of space and time. These insights don’t merely give us thought experiments; they are crucial for technologies such as…

A particle smasher has created antihyperhelium-4, the heaviest antimatter nucleus ever made in a physics labDuncan Walker/Getty Images Another antimatter record has been broken. In the smash-up of very energetic lead ions, researchers have uncovered evidence of the heaviest antimatter version of an atomic nucleus ever seen. In 2024, researchers from the STAR Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York reported briefly creating a then unprecedentedly heavy antimatter nucleus called antihyperhydrogen-4. Now, Benjamin Dönigus at Goethe University Frankfurt…

Sam Falconer Like many young children, Sijbren Otto was fascinated by the history of life and wanted to dig up dinosaurs when he grew up. But life doesn’t always go to plan, and he ended up becoming not a palaeontologist in the field, but a chemist in the lab. Still, maybe that wasn’t such a departure from his childhood dream. Thanks to a surprise discovery, his work would take him closer than any fossil ever could to the heart of one of the most profound questions about life on Earth. In 2010, Otto stumbled upon some of the first synthetic molecules that could self-replicate. Since then, he has been trying to coax them into states that look intriguingly like life. “We’ve been building on them to make them do more and more lifelike things – not only replicate, but also metabolise and evolve,” he says. That simple chemicals can behave in this way is startling enough. But recently, Otto’s experiments have also offered tentative evidence that life may best be described as a novel state of matter, an idea proposed by Addy Pross, a chemist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. “It’s a bridge that brings the physical and the biological worlds together,” says Pross. The hope is that studying the physical processes that underpin life may explain how it originated and illuminate its nature. Already the results are suggesting that Darwinian evolution may be just one facet of a more general evolutionary principle that also applies to the non-living world. In which case, researchers argue, evolution…