Science

For years, the idea that Mars once held vast amounts of water has remained one of planetary science’s most persistent questions. Dry river valleys, mineral deposits, and ancient lake basins have all hinted that the planet looked very different billions of years ago, but proving the existence of a true ocean has been far more…

Some of the world’s most advanced robots are preparing for an extraordinary expedition to one of the planet’s most dangerous environments. Beginning this July, a fleet of autonomous drones, robotic boats, underwater vehicles and intelligent sensors will travel to Greenland to investigate how its glaciers are melting where they meet the ocean. The mission, known…

How Shrimp Shells Are Being Turned Into ‘Carbon Negative’ Fuel, Food and Construction Materials Discarded shrimp shells could soon become more than kitchen waste. Scientists in Singapore have developed a process that converts organic rubbish into hydrogen fuel, protein for aquaculture feed and calcium carbonate, a material used in products such as cement and antacids.The…

Far beyond Pluto, where sunlight is faint and temperatures remain extremely low, countless icy bodies drift through the outer reaches of the Solar System. These distant objects, known as trans-Neptunian objects, have long been viewed as frozen relics left over from the Solar System’s formation. Most are thought to be too small to hold onto…

A 187-foot-tall dipterocarp tree For decades, scientists believed that the tallest trees faced one of nature’s toughest challenges: Getting water from their roots to leaves hundreds of feet above the ground. Now, a study of towering trees in Southeast Asia suggests some of the world’s tallest flowering plants have evolved specialised systems to overcome that…

Albert Einstein (Image: Wikipedia) Albert Einstein wrote, “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” The line is a straightforward claim about where genuinely original work actually comes from. Not from committees, not from rigid instruction, and not from people working under constant supervision, but from…

Innovation often begins with solving problems that others consider impossible. For Dr Robert Sola Okojie, a Nigerian-born engineer and inventor, that pursuit has led to a career spanning more than two decades at Nasa and groundbreaking contributions to space technology. After 21 years at Nasa and securing 21 US patents, he was inducted into the…

Scientists have long relied on chemical traces locked inside ancient rocks to piece together the story of early life. Fossils from the deepest reaches of Earth’s history are rare, often fragmentary and difficult to interpret. Isotopes, by contrast, can survive for billions of years. Among the most informative are those linked to nitrogen, an element…

From hundreds of kilometres above Earth, a national celebration looked very different. While crowds gathered across the United States for the country’s 250th anniversary, astronauts aboard the International Space Station watched the evening lights spread across the planet below. On July 4, as fireworks filled the skies over Los Angeles, the display became part of…

Most years, skywatchers have to wait patiently for different celestial events to arrive one at a time. An eclipse might dominate one month, while a meteor shower steals attention weeks later. This August, however, the calendar has produced a rare overlap. On 12 August 2026, a solar eclipse will unfold across parts of the Northern…