Latest Stories
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UK newspaper hires new journalist: a robot
Has the human race peaked? Artificial intelligence is replacing people on a greater scale than ever before. Yet some scientists say robots may not be the only cause of humankind’s imminent...
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Hidden secrets of the Doomsday glacier
Does our survival depend on the Thwaites Glacier? Scientists monitoring the immense sheet of Antarctic ice warn that if it melts, the effect on global sea level could be catastrophic.
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Alien-hunters to search over 200,000 new stars
Are aliens hiding in plain sight? Scientists are widening the search for life on other planets, but some argue we will never find it because we have no idea of what we are looking for.
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Endangered horse cloned from frozen cells
Should we bring back extinct species? Cells preserved for 40 years have been used to clone an endangered wild horse, but some scientists ask whether cloning is really the solution.
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Rare space rock holds secret to life on Earth
Do meteorites contain the building blocks for life? Scientists have found organic molecules in a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, raising the possibility that life came from outer space.
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SpaceX capsule first splashdown in 45 years
Will Moon tourism be normal in 20 years’ time? For some, yesterday’s historic success of a manned commercial space mission is the start of a new era. But predictions are nearly always wrong.
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America promises to open up the X-files
Should the USA’s secret UFO unit go public? The Pentagon has said that it will publish some of its findings for the first time – but some believe that this would be a dangerous mistake.
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Close-up reveals tiny ‘campfires’ on the Sun
How do we know the Sun will rise tomorrow? Thanks to stunning new satellite images, we know more about the Sun than ever. But we are still no closer to solving the deepest problem of all.
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Earth to invade Mars with a summer of rockets
Are we all Martians? Three spacecraft will soon begin a hazardous journey to the red planet in search of life. Some dream of colonising Mars – but the Martians may already have colonised us.
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Scientists baffled as monster star vanishes
Are you literally a star? It is a fact that humans are made of stardust. Nearly all the elements in our bodies were made in a star – and will eventually be returned to a “cosmic ash heap”.
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Bat or man? Scientists confront virus origins
Was Covid-19 created during a lab accident? Former MI6 boss Richard Dearlove claims that a new scientific report suggests key elements of the virus were “inserted” deliberately.
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History made as astronauts enter space station
Is our obsession with space wrong? Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has triumphed with its first manned US space rocket in a decade. But many believe humans have a moral duty to focus on Earth.
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Time flies – except when it starts to crawl
What is time? Some people have found the weeks of lockdown passing incredibly quickly; for others, every day has been agonisingly slow – suggesting that we trust too much in clocks.
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Send in the troops – there’s trouble on Mars
Is space the next war zone? As the superpowers step up their competing exploration programmes, experts worry that future conflicts could be decided outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Mile-wide asteroid gives Earth a near miss
Are asteroids our biggest threat? Several giant space missiles passed us by recently – and scientists are coming up with amazing plans to protect the planet from intergalactic impact.