Science (Page 240)

Neil Hall/EPA The UK has recorded its hottest ever temperature, passing 40℃ for the first time. But you can’t deny it had fair warning. The Met Office issued an amber weather warning six days before the heatwave and upgraded it to red three days later, enough time to trade cooling-downContinue Reading

Realistic colour view of Jupiter's moon Europa. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute Nasa has recently announced US$600,000 (£495,000) in funding for a study into the feasibility of sending swarms of miniature swimming robots (known as independent micro-swimmers) to explore oceans beneath the icy shells of our Solar System’s many “ocean worlds”. But don’tContinue Reading

Common black ant. Shutterstock To the uninitiated there are two types of ants in the UK: the red ones that bite and black ants which invade our kitchens. Even more alarming is when hundreds of local ant colonies swarm and create a regional “flying ant day”. People can develop anContinue Reading

Marmorerpeton Brennan Stokkermans , Author provided In the fairy-tale landscape of the Isle of Skye off the north-west coast of Scotland, the skull of one of the most ancient salamanders ever discovered to date was excavated from Jurassic limestones. But it would be decades until scientists had the technology andContinue Reading

A star forming region in the Milky Way. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI After decades of development and many trials and frustrations along the way, the James Webb telescope has finally started to deliver what it came for. On July 12, Nasa released the first scientific observations made by theContinue Reading

If an email is setting off alarm bells, check the sender's details Shutterstock We all like to think we’re immune to scams. We scoff at emails from an unknown sender offering us £2 million, in exchange for our bank details. But the game has changed and con artists have developedContinue Reading

Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg with Moshe Biton (right) and Aviv Regev (left). The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is one of the major funders of the Human Cell Atlas. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, CC BY-ND The average body contains about 37 trillion cells – and we are in the midst of aContinue Reading

Heatwaves can leave you desperate to cool down. Shutterstock We spend most of the year complaining that Britain is too cold and wet but gripe with just as much enthusiasm about the heat. Although moaning about the weather is satisfying, it’s better to take action and cool yourself down. YouContinue Reading