The lifestyle choices you make in middle age play a particularly important role in how your brain ages

If the idea of exercise is more attractive than the reality, you aren't alone. But there are ways to train your motivation and develop better habits

Devices that let people with paralysis walk and talk are rapidly improving. Some see a future in which we alter memories and download skills – but major challenges remain

The first generation of stars changed the course of cosmic history. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have a real chance of spotting them

More and more parents are choosing to only have one child. Here’s what the evidence says about how growing up without siblings affects their personality traits and well-being

Evidence suggests that cynicism is bad for your health. Neuroscientist Jamil Zaki describes the three ways to conquer your inner cynic to boost your well-being

Many fear that voters are being manipulated by political campaigns that use Facebook ads, TikTok and YouTube videos, but research reveals a more surprising story

Advances in generative AI mean fake images, videos, audio and bots are now everywhere. But studies have revealed the best ways to tell if something is real

They fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes microglia go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for brain conditions including Alzheimer's

The latest research on caffeine reveals why coffee and decaf can be so good for your health, but energy drinks can be lethal

Neuroscientists have been surprised to discover that the human brain is teeming with microbes, and we are beginning to suspect they could play a role in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's

Friends who blow hot and cold put more strain on your physical and mental health than enemies. Here's how to spot them and handle them

The discovery that a small blue blob of neurons, the locus coeruleus, controls your mode of thinking suggests ways to increase learning, creativity, focus and alertness

The systems we use to produce food have many problems, from horrifying waste to their dependence on fossil fuels. Vaclav Smil explains how to fix them

Ultra-fast pulses of laser light can be shaped into vortices similar to smoke rings – when chained together, they can carry enough information to transmit a simple image

Fictional portrayals of parallel universes are fun to explore, but the scientific view of the multiverse looks very different

It should be possible to combine several quantum states, each with almost no energy, to create a single quantum state containing unexpectedly energy-rich regions

An experiment with a robot and gelatine determined that 65-micrometre-thick paper is the most prone to slicing our skin – but it can also make for a handy recyclable knife

Working with a tiny cantilever, physicists managed to violate the second law of thermodynamics, using less energy than expected to change the cantilever’s motion

The gamma ray burst known as GRB221009A is the biggest explosion astronomers have ever glimpsed and we might finally know what caused the blast

Smashing gold nuclei together at high speeds billions of times has resulted in 16 particles of antihyperhydrogen-4, a very exotic and heavy form of antimatter

A single ytterbium atom, cooled down to extreme temperatures and manipulated with laser beams, could reveal how gravity affects quantum objects

A typically fragile quantum superposition has been made to last exceptionally long, and could eventually be used as a probe for discovering new physics

Alan Turing's theories about computation seem to have a startling consequence, placing hard limits on how fast or slow any physical process in the universe can grow

Launching a million tonnes of moon dust around Earth could dim sunlight across our planet by 1.8 per cent. This would reduce the global temperature, but whether it would be worth the resources, and the risks involved in such a strategy, are unclear

Chris Packham's new BBC series, Earth, looks at significant moments in Earth's history, including anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss, "It's not a sixth mass extinction event that we're precipitating," he says, "it's a mass extermination event"

This photo of Tungurahua, a volcano exploding in the Ecuadorian night, comes from an illustrated book to accompany a TV series about Earth’s deep history

If humans still exist millions of years from now, they will face inhospitably warm conditions on a supercontinent centred at the equator. Most land mammals won't be able to survive

Once seen as miraculous, these days ice is no longer extraordinary. But in a winter season when Antarctic sea ice hit a historic low, it is clear we should cherish it more, says Max Leonard

Scientific bodies are due to make an official decision in the coming year about whether to declare a new geochronological unit precipitated by the impact of humans on Earth

In Iceland, scientists are planning to drill two boreholes to a reservoir of liquid rock. One will give us our first direct measurements of magma – the other could supercharge geothermal power

Photographer Matjaz Krivic has been charting the effects of lithium mining on locals in the world's largest salt flat in Bolivia since 2016

Companies are searching all over the world for deposits of geologic hydrogen that could be used as clean fuel, and a mine in Albania could give them clues about where to look

Strange volcanoes called kimberlites bring diamonds up from Earth's depths. Scientists have always struggled to understand why they switched off millions of years ago – but perhaps they didn't

Climate change is making extreme cold upwellings more common in certain regions of the world, and these events can be catastrophic for animals such as bull sharks

A proposal to define the Anthropocene as a geological epoch was rejected this March, but humanity's impact on Earth is real, whether formalised or not, says Jan Zalasiewicz

Amazing images of an open-air library, underground lab and design museum show the reincarnation of dead mines, captured in a new book, 102 Things to Do With a Hole in the Ground

Pascal Maitre's photos from the Democratic Republic of Congo detail the problems arising as demand for cobalt grows

A story passed down in folklore led scientists to evidence of an 8-metre tsunami that hit an island in Hawaii hundreds of years ago

China's carbon emissions may have peaked in 2023, as figures suggest its output has plateaued so far in 2024

A typically fragile quantum superposition has been made to last exceptionally long, and could eventually be used as a probe for discovering new physics

Antibiotics can reduce diversity in the gut microbiome, raising the risk of infections that cause diarrhoea - and the effects may last years

A fossil of a tadpole from Argentina is 161 million years old - and isn't that different from some modern species

The Renaissance artist Michelangelo had carried out human dissections, which may have led him to include women with breast cancer in some of his pieces

Alan Turing's theories about computation seem to have a startling consequence, placing hard limits on how fast or slow any physical process in the universe can grow

The focus is on finance at the UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, this month, but countries are a long way from any kind of consensus

Although the COP16 summit in Colombia ended with some important agreements, countries still aren’t moving fast enough to stem biodiversity loss

Before Mesopotamian people invented writing, they used cylinder seals to press patterns into wet clay – and some of the symbols used were carried over into proto-writing

The British Heart Foundation’s Reflections of Research competition showcases beautiful images captured by researchers studying heart and circulatory disease

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water