Taurine supplements have been considered promising for delaying ageing, but that may not be the case Shutterstock / Eugeniusz Dudzinski The amino acid taurine was once thought to decline with age, and animal research suggested that taurine supplements could delay ageing. But a new study shows that the decline doesn’t happen consistently. In fact, taurine…
Damage to the retina at the back of the eye can lead to blindness BSIP SA/Alamy A retinal implant has partly restored vision in blind mice, suggesting it could one day benefit people with conditions such as age-related macular degeneration, which involves a progressive loss of light-sensitive cells from the retina. Shuiyuan Wang at Fudan…
17 hours ago David Gritten BBC News Iris Haggai/PA Wire Judi Weinstein Haggai and her husband Gadi Haggai were killed during the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of two Israeli-Americans taken back to Gaza as hostages during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, the Israeli…
Donald Trump has said he will visit China after speaking to its leader Xi Jinping over the phone. The US president said he had reciprocated with an invite to the White House during the “very good talk” – though such a trip has not been confirmed by either side. Thursday’s call is the first time…
The ITER project is an experimental fusion power reactor ITER Nuclear fusion has the potential to deliver nearly limitless power – but before it can even get started, the world must build a massive supply of enriched lithium fuel from scratch. “One of the biggest missing pieces of technology is the enrichment stage, where a…
Similar brain regions are involved in imagination and perceiving reality Naeblys/Alamy How do you tell if something is real or imaginary? We have now discovered a brain pathway that seems to help you decide – and the finding could improve treatments for hallucinations caused by conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. We already knew that the…
What do you do when food is running low and you are a tiny, millimetre-long worm? The answer, it turns out, is join up with thousands of your fellows to make a tentacle-like superorganism that can bridge gaps to nearby objects or grab hold of larger animals to carry you further afield. Biologists studying nematode…
A member of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s staff has resigned after being accused of secretly taking photos and videos of women, and recording audio of sex workers. Michael Forbes, Luxon’s deputy chief press secretary, offered his “sincerest apologies to the women I have harmed”. The allegations came to light after a sex worker…
Everything in the forest is the forest Clare Hewitt An average mature oak tree grows hundreds of thousands of leaves each year. When those leaves fall, their nutrients return to the soil to nourish the tree that grew them, as well as other living things in the forest. “They essentially eat themselves every year,” says…
Numbers allow us to focus on one aspect of a situation in detail, but can also oversimplify things Mika Baumeister/Unsplash UnequalEugenia Cheng (Profile Books (UK, on sale) Basic Books (US, 2 September)) Things are either equal or they aren’t – mathematically speaking, at least, right? Not so fast, says Eugenia Cheng in her new book, Unequal:…