The hunt for particles of dark matter has been stymied once again, with physicists placing constraints on this mysterious substance that are 5 times tighter than the previous best

Atoms tunnelling through a quantum battery could charge it and also keep it from losing energy, which could give an advantage over conventional batteries

With its particles in two places at once, quantum theory strains our common sense notions of how the universe should work. But one group of physicists says we can get reality back if we just redefine its foundations

Forget atomic clocks. Nuclear clocks, which only drop a second every 300 billion years, can test whether nature's fundamental constants are constant after all

In 2022, physicists were excited by hints that something was wrong with our understanding of the universe - but new results have put that in doubt

Experiments in a state-of-the-art wave tank suggest we have underestimated the potential size and power of rogue waves and the risk they pose to offshore infrastructure

Particles of light can spend "negative time" passing through a cloud of extremely cold atoms – without breaking the laws of physics

A recent atomic physics workshop was outside my dark matter comfort zone, but learning about science beyond my usual boundaries was invigorating, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

A mathematical study finds that three definitions of what it means for entropy to increase, which have previously been considered equivalent, can produce different results in the quantum realm

Physicists finally know whether black holes destroy the information contained in infalling matter. The problem is that the answer hasn’t lit the way to a new understanding of space-time

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

Inside a hunk of a material called a semimetal, scientists have uncovered signatures of bizarre particles that sometimes move like they have no mass, but at other times move just like a very massive particle

Droplets of fluid have been known to hover above a hot surface, but a new experiment suggests the same can happen to tiny jets of liquid too

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

From a sea turtle and diver swimming in harmony in Malaysia to a red-eyed tree frog in its Costa Rican rainforest home, take a peek at some of the winning entries in one of the most prestigious photography competitions

Tiny pieces of stone found in a rock formation in Western Australia may be the oldest evidence of a meteorite impact on Earth, dating back nearly 3.5 billion years

A well in Nebraska is the first in the world to have been drilled in search of naturally occurring geologic hydrogen, but tests to determine how much of the gas it might supply are on hold because of a broken pump

A link between volcanic activity and rising bubbles of low pressure in the ionosphere has now been proven, which may be why the colossal Tonga volcano eruption in 2022 disrupted satellite communications

An oil company in China has started drilling a hole that would be the deepest in the country and among the deepest in the world

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

The destruction of telecommunications cables during the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano in 2022 shows that underwater debris currents can travel at 122 kilometres per hour

The Chicxulub impact 66 million years ago filled the sky with fine silicate dust, which blocked out sunlight and lingered for 15 years

Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, the largest lake in South America, has been captured in detail by the European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission

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

Few volcanos come with more risk than Mexico's Popocatépetl, situated near Mexico City.  To mitigate danger, volcanologist Chiara Maria Petrone is trying to predict its next eruption

The stratosphere seems to be full of aluminium particles and other metals that come from spacecraft burning up in the atmosphere, and those particles could mess up polar clouds

A drilling project in the Taklamakan desert is aiming to reach more than 11,000 metres below Earth’s surface as China explores the deep earth for resources

This spectacular selection of images is taken from the winners of the Northern Lights Photographer of the Year competition, run by Capture the Atlas

Several enormous craters left by explosions have been spotted in Siberia over the past 15 years, and a new explanation links them to hot gas – and climate change

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

Lightning strikes during volcanic eruptions could have provided nitrogen in a form that was needed by early life forms

An analysis of satellite observations has identified some extreme thunderstorms over the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Mexico with lightning flashes so frequent that the sky would appear continuously lit

These stunning photographs are all shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards 2024

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

The networks of fibre optic cables that criss-cross the planet could be used to better understand what’s happening inside it

Photographer Diane Tuft has documented how global warming is affecting bodies of water around the world

In an ongoing swarm of earthquakes that began hitting Japan in 2020, the shifting weight of surface water may have spurred the shaking

Taylor Roades's images of a river in north-west Alaska that has turned orange because of global warming have won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo competition

Millions of tonnes of water vapour have been lingering in the atmosphere since the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted in 2022– possibly contributing to global warming

See some of the top entries to this year's Mangrove Photography Awards, showing the beauty and fragility of these unique ecosystems

A scientific drilling ship has burrowed further into Earth’s mantle than ever before, obtaining new clues about the processes that feed oceanic volcanoes and the possible origins of life

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

After over a year of record-high global sea temperatures, the equatorial Atlantic is cooling off more quickly than ever recorded, which could impact weather around the world

A ring of asteroid debris could have orbited Earth for tens of millions of years, and perhaps even have altered the planet's climate

A sprawling research program aims to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting data at the chaotic interface of ocean and atmosphere

Geographer Alastair Bonnett on his pick of the most diverse maps, from a collection of 100,000 galaxies to a 12th-century Chinese depiction of rivers on a grid

El Niño and La Niña cycles driven by ocean temperatures in the Pacific can influence weather in the North Atlantic 12 months later – a finding that could improve long-range forecasts