How teen friendships may predict self harm

PeopleImages/Shutterstock Most of us know what it’s like to be a teenager at school – and how it feels to fit into (or fall outside of) a school’s social hierarchy. This typically includes some version of the popular kids, the loners and the in-betweeners, who have friendships that span across different groups. However, teen hierarchies […]

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New Nasa lunar contest could pit Elon Musk against Jeff Bezos, as US fears China will win race to Moon

The United States and China are locked in a contest to be the first country to send humans to the lunar surface in half a century. But there’s a developing twist: an emerging competition between American companies to build the landing vehicle that could win this new Moon race for the US. The dust-up over […]

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Building Resilient Cities: A Global Security Strategy Poised to Unlock $1 Trillion by 2030

Building resilient cities is no longer a philanthropic ideal—it is a strategic imperative for global security, economic stability, and climate adaptation. With climate-related shocks causing over $300 billion in annual losses, urban resilience is emerging as both a necessity and a growth opportunity. Climate Risk and Economic Exposure According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) […]

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What do spiders really get up to on Halloween?

Incy wincy hasn't got time for witchcraft. thatmacroguy/Shutterstock If you’re scared of spiders, Halloween certainly doesn’t help. People decorate their homes with monstrous-looking fake cobwebs and horror movies depict giant spiders hunting humans or creeping around spooky abandoned houses. Spiders’ long association with witches can also make their presence seem a little ominous. In reality […]

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Where did the first people come from? The case for a coastal migration from southern Africa

The origins and migrations of modern humans around the world are a hot topic of debate. Genetic analyses have pointed to Africa as the continent from which our ancestors dispersed in the Late Pleistocene epoch, which began about 126,000 years ago. Various dispersal routes have been suggested. As a group of scientists who have been […]

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Bugonia: why some people’s brains cling to the idea that aliens are real

The latest absurdist offering from Yorgos Lanthimos, director of The Favourite and Poor Things, hits cinemas this week, and Bugonia promises to be another strange and rollicking masterpiece of complete, unmissable chaos. Lanthimos’s muse Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons reunite in this darkly comic tale about a pharmaceutical CEO (Stone) kidnapped by conspiracy theorists. Believing […]

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Were Neanderthals capable of making art?

Neanderthal handprints in a replica of Maltravieso Cave, Spain. WH Pics / Shutterstock The ability to make art has often been considered a hallmark of our species. Over a century ago, prehistorians even had trouble believing that modern humans from the Upper Palaeolithic (between 45,000 and 12,000 years ago) were capable of artistic flair. Discoveries […]

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AI is changing who gets hired – what skills will keep you employed?

The consulting firm Accenture recently laid off 11,000 employees while expanding its efforts to train workers to use artificial intelligence. It’s a sharp reminder that the same technology driving efficiency is also redefining what it takes to keep a job. And Accenture isn’t alone. IBM has already replaced hundreds of roles with AI systems, while […]

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Why we used to sleep in two segments – and how the modern shift changed our sense of time

Albert Joseph Moore/Shutterstock Continuous sleep is a modern habit, not an evolutionary constant, which helps explain why many of us still wake at 3am and wonder if something’s wrong. It might help to know that this is a deeply human experience. For most of human history, a continuous eight-hour snooze was not the norm. Instead, […]

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How anatomical names can carry hidden histories of power and exclusion

Gabriel Falloppius explaining one of his discoveries to the Cardinal Duke of Ferrara WellcomeTrust, CC BY-SA Buried in your body is a tribute to a long-dead Italian anatomist, and he is not the only one. You are walking around with the names of strangers stitched into your bones, brains, and organs. We all are. Some […]

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