Your limits when exercising really could be all in your head Cavan Images/Alamy Researchers have identified neurons in mice that help build endurance after running. They suspect that similar cells exist in people, which could be targeted with drugs or other therapies to amplify the effects of exercise. We have known for decades that the…
Illustration of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing complex (pink and purple) bound to DNA (helix) Science Photo Library/Alamy Imagine if, instead of delivering a leaflet individually to each home, a postal worker just had to give one to a volunteer on each block, who then photocopied it and handed out copies to neighbours. That postal worker would…
Jessie Buckley as Agnes in Hamnet AGATA GRZYBOWSKA/2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC The film Hamnet, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, rightly emphasises the relationship between people and nature. We meet Agnes (Jessie Buckley, pictured above), Hamnet’s mother and wife of William Shakespeare, in the woods, asleep. She is said to be the daughter of a wood…
Adrià Voltà It is easy to be defeatist about the fate of our planet. There is an ongoing climate crisis, extinctions are in overdrive, forests are disappearing, water cycles are collapsing and pollution is choking cities and creating dead zones in the oceans. And there is also US President Donald Trump, who thinks the science…
The ancestors of the British Bell Beaker people lived in a wetland area and relied heavily on fishing SHEILA TERRY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Analysis of ancient DNA has uncovered the origins of a mysterious group who appeared in Britain around 2400 BC and, in a century or less, all but replaced the people who built Stonehenge.…
The gene therapy is administered as a mist that is inhaled Nico De Pasquale Photography/Getty Images A first-of-its-kind inhalable gene therapy for lung cancer that genetically modifies people’s lung cells has been fast-tracked towards potential approval after promising clinical trial results. “Very encouragingly, the hypothesis was proven – that there was actually shrinkage of the…
Authorities in Iran have put on a show of strength to mark the 47th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, weeks after they used unprecedented force to put down anti-government protests. The BBC is visiting Tehran for the first time since the crackdown, during which at least 6,490 protesters were killed across the country, according to…
South Australia has built huge solar farms like this one in in Port Augusta Brook Mitchell/Getty Images As South Australia gets close to its goal of running purely on solar and wind energy, its electricity prices have dropped by a third in a year and are now the lowest in Australia. The state serves as…
Police have released audio of a call between emergency services and a 13-year-old Australian boy who swam for hours to get help for his family after they were swept out to sea earlier in February. In the call, Austin Appelbee says his siblings – brother Beau, 12, and sister Grace, eight – and their mother…
When you wake up the next morning, before you’ve had anything to eat or drink, you spit into a little vial. Then you prick your fingertip with the provided mini lancet, which didn’t hurt at all. You fill four minivettes (think tiny turkey basters) from the little drops of blood that form on your fingertip.…