Compounds called pyrenes have been detected in the Taurus molecular cloud ESO A complex form of carbon crucial for life on Earth has been spotted outside the solar system for the first time. Its presence helps show how the compounds needed for life could come from space. The most abundant form of carbon in the…
The gut microbiome is hugely diverse – and the microorganisms don’t live in harmony Shutterstock Your gut is a battleground where rival tribes of bacteria armed with poison darts fight for territory – and these battles are often won by armies of traitors made to switch sides by selfish DNA transferred to them by their…
Wreckage from the 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii Rick Bowmer/Associated Press/Alamy Wildfires in the western US aren’t only growing bigger. They are also growing faster, putting millions of people and properties at greater risk. “In the context of home destruction and lives lost, we really need to think more about fire speed than fire size,”…
Scanning electron micrograph of Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria Scott Camazine/Alamy A patch that zaps the skin with electrical pulses could be used before or after surgery to prevent bacteria on the skin from causing blood poisoning, reducing our reliance on antibiotics. Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria usually live harmlessly on human skin, but if they enter the body…
Greenhouse gas emissions are still on the rise Weiquan Lin/Getty Images As the world emerged from the lockdowns of the covid-19 pandemic, many countries promised to rebuild their economies in a climate-friendly fashion, amid hopes the recovery effort could accelerate the global journey to net-zero emissions. In reality, the opposite has happened. Instead of a…
Marie Curie pictured at work in her laboratory in Paris, in 1912 Universal History Archive/Getty Images The Elements of Marie CurieDava Sobel (Fourth Estate, UK; Grove Atlantic, US) ON 7 November 1867, Marya Salomea Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire. She was the youngest of five children, and became known as “Manya” by her family. She…
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO In its short existence, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has transformed our understanding of the universe. It has peered at planets, stars, galaxies and black holes, casting its eye over a cornucopia of celestial treats. It can seem like JWST arrived out of nowhere, but the telescope has…
Antonio Sortino When he was in need of inspiration, the inventor Thomas Edison used to take a nap in a chair while holding a metal ball in each hand. The moment he dropped off, the balls would drop too and crash to the floor, jolting him awake. Edison claimed that this allowed him to capture…
Michael Strevens In March 1974, Stephen Hawking published the paper that made his name. It contained the revelation that black holes – gravitational giants from which nothing, not even light, can escape – don’t grow and grow until the end of time, but instead slowly shrink as they release particles in a phenomenon now called…
This fluorescent technique can precisely measure minuscule distances Steffen J. Sahl / Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences The tiniest “ruler” ever is so precise that it can measure the width of a single atom within a protein. Proteins and other large molecules, or macromolecules, sometimes fold into the wrong shape, and this can affect…