What it’s like to discover an ancient Egyptian tomb – and the race against time to preserve it
The first moment you look inside a newly discovered ancient tomb is at once exciting and terrifying. I was fortunate to experience this recently as director of an international research team carrying out fieldwork in the Theban necropolis, a Unesco world heritage site near the modern Egyptian city of Luxor. Our project’s primary aim is […]
Is hope back? Why it’s such an important part of Andy Burnham’s big plan
Andy Burnham has embarked on a tour of the UK where he will champion a “ten-year plan to bring back hope”. This has been the language of the early stages of the Burnham premiership – in his first speech in Downing Street, he proclaimed it the moment when “Britain starts to believe again, the moment […]
Putting out wildfires: how peat restoration has reduced fire risk in Indonesia’s tropical forests
Tropical peatlands are degraded by repeated forest fires. nasichsan/Shutterstock Peatland fires in Indonesia pose a major threat to habitats, wildlife and people. That risk is exacerbated by the country’s periodic El Niño warming phases, which bring prolonged drought. Massive fires have occurred in all the recent El Niño years, including 2015, 2019 and 2023. With […]
How animals prepare for war
Chacma baboons don’t hang around in risky areas. Danita Delimont/Shutterstock Battles between rival groups are a story as old as time. This sounds like a human story, but it is also one that is playing out across nature. Conflict between groups of animals competing for territory and resources is widespread, and contests between animals can […]
Is this the world’s oldest image of a mind-altering plant?
Deep in the El Castillo cave in northern Spain, up a side passage off the main pathway, there is a small painted panel most visitors would walk straight past. Created some 17,000 to 15,000 years ago, it shows five red signs, each shaped a little like a bell. A natural stone ledge runs beneath them […]
The Fly at 40: why Cronenberg’s grotesque classic remains his most affecting film
Surely one of horror’s most promising unmade films is David Cronenberg’s Frankenstein. This adaptation was to be a contemporary rethinking of Mary Shelley’s novel featuring a humanised, intelligent creature. Despite an advert in a 1980 issue of Variety, the project never got far into development. To anyone familiar with Cronenberg’s obsession with the body, with […]
How to enjoy the solar eclipse safely
Orlowski Designs LLC/Shutterstock Most people underestimate how much light a pair of sunglasses blocks out. A typical dark pair removes around 80 to 90% of the visible light reaching the eye. Safely looking directly at the Sun requires reducing the light reaching the eye by a factor of around 100,000, meaning roughly 99.999% must be […]
Inside the antarctic expedition that made Shackleton and Scott famous – and paved the way to the South Pole
The Discovery winter camp. Wikimedia, CC BY-NC In August 1901 Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton and more than 40 other men set sail to Antarctica for the first time. On their newly built ship, the Discovery, neither Scott nor Shackleton knew what to expect, nor whether they would come back alive. It was on this journey, […]
Head injuries associated with e-scooters – new study
Pen_ash/Unsplash A fall from an electric scooter (e-scooter) can look deceptively minor. The rider is standing only a short distance above the road and, unlike a motorcycle, most e-scooters are limited to relatively modest speeds. Yet trauma surgeons are seeing injuries that tell a different story. E-scooter crashes can cause serious head injuries, damage to […]
Nature has spent billions of years fighting bacteria – AI could help us learn its secrets
E coli has a new enemy – designed by AI. Saiful52/Shutterstock.com Tiny viruses that infect bacteria could one day help us tackle infections that antibiotics can no longer treat. But first, scientists need to understand how these viruses work, and artificial intelligence could provide them with a powerful way to do that. Known as bacteriophages, […]