Mark Poynting, Jess Carr and Phil Leake BBC Climate and Verify data journalism teams Getty Images Many reservoirs in northern England, like Lindley Wood in Yorkshire, have hit extremely low levels If you live in north-west England or Yorkshire, you are already in an official state of drought, the Environment Agency says, and people living…
Researchers say they have developed a new way to distinguish between legal mammoth ivory and illegal elephant ivory. Elephant ivory is often passed off as mammoth ivory when being imported. As the mammoth is extinct, it is legal to trade this form of ivory as opposed to that from elephant tusks, which was banned in…
An orca attempting to share food with a researcher holding a camera Orca Research Trust Orcas have been seen appearing to gift dead prey to humans, which may be a sign that they engage in altruism and can recognise sentience in other species. Jared Towers at marine research firm Bay Cetology was filming a pod…
Protocells are membrane-bound spheres formed from fatty molecules that are thought to resemble the precursors to living cells HENNING DALHOFF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Membrane-bound structures similar to those that enclose living cells have been shown to spontaneously self-assemble on micrometeorites, offering a tantalising hint that dust strewn across planets could play a role in the development…
A pioneering study has provided unprecedented insights into the immune response following pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation.1 The findings, presented today at the ESOT Congress 2025, mark a significant step forward in overcoming the biggest challenge in xenotransplantation: rejection by the human immune system. Using cutting-edge spatial molecular imaging, researchers mapped how human immune cells interact with…
Previously described as playing astronomical ‘spot the difference,’ Kilonova Seekers asks the public to compare the latest images of a section of night sky to an image of the same section of space taken on previous nights. Their goal – to spot new stars or significant changes in light intensity that may indicate that something…
Phoebe Waller-Bridge has worked on some unusual projects since Fleabag, the comedy-drama that made her name and broke many a heart. Octopus!, a two-part documentary on Amazon Prime Video about (you guessed it) octopuses, may just be the oddest one yet. That exclamation mark is an omen of the whimsy to come – this is…
What’s missing? Pondering the displays at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Nature’s MemoryJack Ashby (Allen Lane) Museums are strange things, Jack Ashby, assistant director of the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, UK, points out in his new book, Nature’s Memory: Behind the…
An orca attempting to share food with a researcher holding a camera Orca Research Trust Orcas have been seen appearing to gift dead prey to humans, which may be a sign that they engage in altruism and can recognise sentience in other species. Jared Towers at marine research firm Bay Cetology was filming a pod…
Urea is one of the most important industrial chemicals produced worldwide. It is used as a fertiliser, for the production of synthetic resins and explosives and as a fuel additive for cleaning car exhaust gases. Urea is also believed to be a potential key building block for the formation of biological molecules such as RNA…
