- January 16, 2026
Cancelling plans may be more socially acceptable than you think
People can be surprisingly forgiving when someone cancels social plans sturti/Getty Images Many of us feel bad about cancelling social plans, but it turns out
The Pacific Islanders fighting to save their homes from climate catastrophe
On Sikaiana Atoll, a tiny islet in the Solomon Islands home to 300 people, rising sea levels are anything but a distant projection. High tides
Sinking trees in Arctic Ocean could remove 1 billion tonnes of CO2
Trees floating towards the Arctic Ocean Carl Christoph Stadie/The Alfred Wegener Institute Cutting down swathes of boreal forest and sinking the trees into the depths
Hominin fossils from Morocco may be close ancestors of modern humans
The jawbone of an ancient hominin found at Grotte à Hominidés in Morocco Hamza Mehimdate, Programme Préhistoire de Casablanca Fossils nearly three-quarters of a million
Fossil analysis adds to debate over how earliest known hominin walked
Sahelanthropus fossils (centre) compared with a chimpanzee (left) and a human (right) Wiliams et al., Sci. Adv. 12, eadv0130 A long-running and bitterly fought dispute
How to cultivate a positive mindset
Not stopping on a run when you feel the urge helps practise self-control miljko/Getty Images Olivia Remes is a mental health and well-being researcher at
Mathematicians unified key laws of physics in 2025
The equations that govern fluids can be tricky to handle Vladimir Veljanovski / Alamy In 1900, mathematician David Hilbert presented his colleagues with a list
2025’s best photos of the natural world, from volcanoes to icebergs
Mount Etna erupting European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery Mount Etna in Sicily is the world’s most active stratovolcano, which is a high, conical volcano created
The best space pictures of 2025, from supernovae to moon landings
The supernova remnant SNR 0509-67.5 as seen by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope ESO/P. Das et al. Background stars (Hubble): K. Noll et
Putting data centres in space isn’t going to happen any time soon
Starcloud wants to build a data centre satellite that is 4 kilometres by 4 kilometres Starcloud Could AI’s insatiable thirst for colossal data centres be
