“It’s no surprise that the first countries to abolish prisons were Scandinavian…” Walker/Getty Images In the 2020s, the US was spending an eye-watering $182 billion a year on locking up its citizens. No other country imprisoned as many people or spent as much in doing so. And the US wasn’t alone: prisons in many countries…
No two comets are exactly alike. Of course, they can appear similar. Two decently bright comets that share a superficial resemblance are gracing our skies right now, in fact: C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) and C/2025 R2 (SWAN). They both are on orbits that swoop through the inner solar system and then back out into deep space,…
A shot from the Growing the Next Era of Fashion section at Material World Ines Stuart-Davidson/RBG Kew As a lover of fashion, I was intrigued to visit Material World, the first festival at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, devoted to fashion and textiles. Staged in the Temperate House until 2 November, the exhibition sees artists,…
DNA from Napoleonic soldiers’ teeth uncovered two fever-causing bacteria that may have worsened the army’s fatal retreat from Russia.
October 24, 2025 3 min read Napoleon’s Defeat in Russia Was Aided by Two Surprising Deadly Diseases Disease-causing bacteria that have been recently discovered in the teeth of Napoleonic soldiers may have spurred the massive infantry’s demise during its retreat from Russia By Andrea Tamayo edited by Dan Vergano Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Adolph Northen;…
Peter Betts (seated, pink shirt) at COP17 in Durban, South Africa, in 2011 IISD/ENB Leila Mead The Climate DiplomatPeter Betts, Profile Editions Climate negotiators, lobbyists and world leaders will descend on the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém next month for this year’s UN climate summit, COP30. For anyone who has been to a COP summit,…
In a first, a scientific conference welcomed paper submissions from any area of science, but with one catch: AI had to do most of the work. Called Agents4Science 2025, the Oct. 22 virtual event focused on the work of artificial intelligence agents — systems that pair large language models with other tools or databases to…
October 24, 2025 3 min read FDA Warns People Not to Eat Recalled Eggs Contaminated with Salmonella This is the third Salmonella-related egg recall of 2025. Here’s what to do if you have recalled eggs By Tanya Lewis edited by Megha Satyanarayana The FDA has recalled eggs contaminated with Salmonella Virojt Changyencham/Getty Images There really…
People with fibromyalgia have different genetic variants than those without it KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images We are starting to unpick the genetics of fibromyalgia, a poorly understood condition that causes chronic pain all over the body. The results of two studies – with millions of participants between them – support the idea that dysfunction…
Glioblastoma doesn’t just affect the brain. It also erodes bones in the skull and changes the composition of immune cells in skull marrow.
