An illustration of CAR T-cell therapy treating melanoma, a form of skin cancer Nemes Laszlo/Shutterstock A therapy that has revolutionised how we treat blood and skin cancers could become even more effective. Making cancer cells stiffer bolstered the effects of immunotherapy, when the immune system is manipulated to kill off tumours, in mice with the…
Do you think with your head or your heart? Denise Chan/Alamy Here’s a simple task that might help you to understand your mind a little better. Place your finger on part of your body that best represents the location of the “self”. Don’t overthink it; there is no right or wrong answer. Simply tune into…
You may find vocal fry irritating, but don’t automatically attribute it to women Cavan Images / Alamy If you have listened to a podcast or watched a video on TikTok lately, you will probably be familiar with vocal fry, even if you didn’t know it had a name. Vocal fry describes the creaky sound that…
Charred trees still standing after a wildfire in Glacier National Park, Montana Gorski/NurPhoto/Shutterstock In 2021, a smouldering underground coal seam ignited the tinder-dry grass and brush in Poverty Flats, Montana, setting off a wildfire that burned 267 square kilometres. The blaze killed 50,000 trees, mostly ponderosa pines, that had shaded cattle grazing on the Gentry…
Quantum computers are strange-looking machines ROBERT GHEMENT/EPA/Shutterstock Picture a quantum computer. Are you imagining an ordinary computer, but somehow just better? If so, that would be a mistake, because quantum computers are fundamentally different. They rely on exotic quantum phenomena occurring between their constituent parts, known as qubits, but their strange nature often invites myths…
Melting glaciers, like the one in Ilulissat Icefjord, could release vast stores of methane Gerald Wetzel, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany Meltwater flushed frozen methane hydrates out of the sediment at the edge of the Greenland ice sheet after the last glacial maximum, which occurred 29,000 to 19,000 years ago, raising fears that melting glaciers…
A scanning electron micrograph of an embryonic muscle cell differentiating in to a skeletal muscle cell STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Old mice grow bigger muscles and recover from injuries better when stem cells are taken out of their aged muscles, given a reboot, then put back in. A similar approach may allow rejuvenation of ageing…
The winning photograph, Handprint on Sea Turtle by Britta Jaschinski Britta Jaschinski/Environmental Photography Award 2026 The illegal trade in live and dead animals funds crime and political corruption and threatens biodiversity. Sadly, prosecutions are rare. Alexandra Thomas and Louise Gibson at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Wildlife Forensic Lab are working on techniques to…
Suzanne Simard and Rowan Hooper discuss the “mother tree” concept To some, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard is a pioneer in the tradition of Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson and Lynn Margulis. To others, she has veered too far from what science tells us. In 1997, she published a breakthrough paper showing that trees exchange food and…
Chelsea Whyte In the greenhouse at Kew Gardens in London, a small crowd is forming, drawn to a peculiar stench in the back. A corpse flower, the mighty Amorphophallus titanum, has bloomed for the first time in years here, standing more than 2.5 metres tall. I came to take in the stink of a plant…