Category: Technology

In the early 1990s, crime-loving television audiences could choose mainly between cozy, fictional detective series such as Columbo and Murder, She Wrote. The US docuseries Unsolved Mysteries brought a few real cold-case investigations to light, but coverage of forensic science on screen was still relatively simple. Then, in May 1991, The Silence of the Lambs […]

When imagining our early human ancestors in prehistoric Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago, one might envision trekkers plodding across a savanna, baking under an equatorial sun. Research, however, suggests that our species’ unique strengths – creativity, cooperation and adaptability – may have been honed in a very different environment. Our team of archaeologists […]

Walking the dog: a US service member patrols with a Ghost Robotics Vision 60 prototype at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Tech. Sgt. Cory Payne / US Air Force The third in a series of military AI summits was held in La Coruña, Spain in February 2026. The aim of the meeting was to […]

Africa is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. But much of its biodiversity remains poorly studied. Research from the continent contributes to less than 1% to global scientific output. This pattern is often explained by limited investment in research. Governments in sub-Saharan Africa allocate, on average, only about 0.4% of their gross domestic […]

For most of the 20th century, the model of human origins was a tree: with the trunk dividing into branches, and then twigs. Each species of human relative (hominin) was a neat, single branch. As an undergraduate, I was taught that Homo sapiens was one of these branches that emerged in Africa, spread across the […]

Excavators cut shallow areas in the peatlands as part of a project to develop more wetlands. Adam Johnston, CC BY-SA Thousands of holes are appearing in the Pennine hills, as part of efforts to improve carbon storage by restoring damaged peatland. Peat itself is carbon rich and so as it grows it will help to […]

The importance of bees for pollinating wild plants and crops is well known. If we lose the bees, we lose our food. But this is only part of the picture. Bees also support a hidden network of other species, sometimes as mutual partners, sometimes as prey, sometimes as other unwilling victims. Many organisms depend on […]

Heatwaves are a growing global threat to human health, wellbeing and livelihoods. Across 12 major European cities during the summer of 2025, a ten-day period of extreme heat led to 2,300 deaths – 1,500 of them were attributed to climate change amplifying temperatures by 1-4°C. Heatwaves were responsible for nearly half a million global deaths […]

Sudan lies at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East. It has played a key role in human demographic movements, reflected in the diversity of its cultures and languages. Although much of the country is arid, the Nile River has long acted as a corridor for trade, facilitating human migration through the region for […]

Illustration of a Mars mission that utilises nuclear propulsion. Nasa Nasa is developing ways to use nuclear power to send spacecraft to their destinations. Nuclear propulsion could greatly reduce the journey time to Mars, perhaps cutting a voyage of more than six months to three or four months. The idea of nuclear propulsion in space […]