Category Science

“You can see an ecosystem change overnight—specifically with hydrilla. You’ll see a normal pond, and then at the end of the growing season, it’s completely full of hydrilla,” said Nicole White, founder of Little Bear Environmental Consulting, which often works…

Elephants are masters at using a hose – considered a complex tool because of its flexibility, length and the physics of flowing water. Researchers studying three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) at Berlin Zoo were surprised to see how nimbly they…

A chimpanzee tackling a number test on a touch screen Akiho Muramatsu The pressure of a watching audience can have positive or negative effects on human performance, and it turns out the same is true of our closest relatives. Christen…

November 8, 2024 5 min read What Trump Can—and Probably Can’t—Do to Reverse U.S. Climate Policy The new president-elect can go beyond just pulling out of the Paris Agreement. But it may be more difficult to roll back clean energy…

A rapid form of 3D printing that uses sound and light could one day produce copies of human organs made from a person’s own cells, allowing for a range of drug tests. Traditional 3D printers build from a hard base,…

A spiny toad amplexus, with a female in the middle of several males. Aloys Pichard Each year, hordes of spiny toads (Bufo spinosus) gather to breed and lay their eggs in freshwater lakes and ponds, mainly across Spain, Portugal and…

Coal plants and wind turbines coexist rather than replace each other in Westphalia, Germany mauritius images GmbH / Alamy More and More and MoreJean-Baptiste Fressoz (Allen Lane) The drive towards decarbonisation and the search for alternative, less-polluting sources of energy…

Less than a month has passed since the historic fifth flight of SpaceX’s Starship, during which the company caught the booster with mechanical arms back at the launch pad in Texas. Now, another test flight could come as soon as…

An island of floating brown Sargassum seaweed Andrey Nekrasov/Alamy The big question, in the mid-21st century, wasn’t how to transition away from fossil fuels – that process became self-propelling as renewable energy became ever cheaper – but how to get…

Roger Penrose, at the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria APA-PictureDesk/Alamy The Impossible ManPatchen Barss (Atlantic Books (UK, 14 November); Basic Books (US, 12 November)) Many people still believe (and many scientists tell themselves) that genius is a solitary affair,…