Screwworm could be the first species targeted by an ‘extinction drive’
Tusk-like mandibles protrude from a screwworm larva’s mouth Scott Camazine/Alamy In a few cases, the extinction of a species would be a good thing. That’s
Most portable air conditioners suck – but there’s an easy fix
Single-hose air conditioners suck hot air in from outside Ton Hazewinkel/Getty Images Thinking of getting a portable air conditioner as sweltering heatwaves become more common?
Waves reflecting off Earth’s core shifted Japan after 2011 earthquake
The fishing port of Kesennuma, Japan, in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Around 15 minutes
Sperm have been made magnetic to allow IVF inside the body
IVF has helped many people overcome fertility problems, but could be improved by doing more of the process within the body ZEPHYR/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Embryos
Quantum computer quickly mines cryptocurrency while using less energy
The Advantage2 quantum processing unit D-Wave A quantum computer is successfully mining cryptocurrency in the first experiment of its kind, while also using a lot
Iron Age Britons may have removed the brains of the dead
Fragments of the skull (left) and shoulder blades (right) of a woman buried at Loch Borralie, UK Rebecca Ellis-Haken A woman interred in Scotland 2000
Are we getting to the point where it’s safe to gene-edit babies?
Light micrograph of a human egg cell after fertilisation CC STUDIO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY When a rogue researcher in China revealed in 2018 that he had
The looming El Niño could be bad – but much worse is to come
Waves supercharged by El Niño hit the California coast in 2016 Eliason/Zuma Wire/Shutterstock A “Godzilla El Niño” is coming, according to some newspaper headlines. The
Climate Fiction prize winner Helen Phillips: ‘The book is in the future, but everything is seeded from our present’
Hum is set in an over-heated near-future metropolis Ingram Publishing / Alamy Hum by Helen Phillips, the story of a mother’s struggle to protect and
Mathematical AI helps researchers crack 50-year-old problem
Paul Erdős made many conjectures about numbers in his life Oliver Helbig/Getty Images Just a week after an AI disproved an 80-year-old conjecture and astonished