The first ever spacecraft to bring Martian samples back to Earth has launched from Japan. However, before the spacecraft returns from Phobos in 2031 there are many complex challenges that lie ahead, l...
The climate changing power of 400 billion toasters
Back in May, we checked in on the developments in the eastern Pacific’s ocean currents, that we call El Niño. We said that stirrings in the surface suggested there might just be quite a big one. Now, ...
Tom Whipple investigates one of the biggest days in the 10,000 year history of maths. This week, overnight, OpenAI dropped hundreds of mathematical papers onto the internet. From the Margulis-Platonov...
Tom Whipple travels 100m below Switzerland to the tunnels of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) where the beams have been powered down to begin the High-Luminosity LHC upgrade. Paulo Fessia, deputy he...
In October members of the General Conference on Weights and Measurements are voting to change how we keep time on Earth accurate. Currently an additional second, known as a Leap Second, can be added t...
Nuclear fusion energy, the idea of copying the sun’s heat source on earth to make limitless commercial energy is famously always 30 years away. This month, the UK and US have agreed to combine the bra...
Is AI really plotting against us? In a week where an Anthropic researcher believes there is more than a 10% chance AI 'could kill all humans' we're delving deeper into the capabilities of AI agents. T...
The quest for Dark Matter just got interesting. Researchers on an international project called the Lux-Zeplin (LZ) Dark Matter Experiment reported they may have discovered the signature of a bit of Da...
Reports about the impacts of datacentres, including carbon emissions, water usage and power consumption, vary drastically and the truth can be hard to decipher. Deborah Andrews, Emeritus Professor at ...
This week Merck (known as MSD in Europe) and Moderna announced that a personalised cancer vaccine had significantly improved the outcomes of melanoma patients. Is the era of the cancer vaccine, at las...
The extreme possibilities of synthetic biology hit the headlines last week, when researchers at Stanford University in the US announced they had created new kinds of viruses designed by Artificial Int...
The state of our substrate: What is drought doing to our soil?
Large parts of Europe are in the grip of drought. According to the UK Meteorological Office, last week was the UK's driest July on record. Katie Field, professor of plant-soil processes at Sheffield U...
Scientists have long referred to the Goldilocks zone – the region around a star where conditions are not too hot and not too cold but “just right” for life. Joined by a live audience at the Cheltenham...
Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has announced that the US military will be screening military personnel aged 30 and older for testosterone deficiency. Those found with low testosterone levels will b...
A few years ago a satellite speeding through the Van Allen belt in earth orbit raised concerns that it may include a nuclear weapon. An explosion in that orbit would take out much of our global space ...
Synthetic biologist Kate Adamal and her team at the University of Minnesota published their research into the lab-created ‘SpudCell’ in a significant step towards building life from scratch. Science j...
During this year’s visit to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, Tom Whipple discovers how sea urchins are being used to develop techniques to digitally preserve natural history, why...
As the UK and Europe battles with extreme weather warnings, is it time for us to consider some more extreme tactics to tackle the heat? Tom Whipple is joined by Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System ...
After this week’s announcement that under-16s will be banned from major social media platforms, we delve into the evidence behind the ban with Professor Amy Orben, Programme Leader of the Digital Ment...
After 144 years the tallest tower on the Sagrada Familia is finally complete, but when Gaudi first designed it, the technology to build the tower didn’t exist. We’re joined by Tristram Carfrae, struct...
