Science & Technology

Is it really possible to supercharge your willpower?

The ability to kick bad habits is seen by many as the key to health and happiness. How much can we control it?

In a digital world, the use of outdated stats simply doesn’t add up

Our economy gauges were invented in the last century. We need a system that works now

Why Churchill’s birthplace lies at the heart of UK energy battle

Row over plans to build 2 million panels on land around Blenheim Palace has become symbolic of a national struggle

New satellites will give 30-minute warning of solar storm emergencies

Nasa devices, launched this week, will counter rising threat to power networks from surges in sun’s radiation

Botanists unlock the Chilean medical marvel that Charles Darwin missed

Vaccine properties of the soapbark tree to be cultivated in days rather than years by new process

Martian ‘rock spots’ breathe new life into Nasa mission

Rover’s discovery of a ‘potential biosignature’ has excited scientists

The millionaire guinea pigs risking death to live for ever

Firms offering untested ‘longevity’ jabs and therapies were once based in offshore free zones. Now a US state is relaxing the rules

Why we should all mourn the slender-billed curlew

A bird that hasn’t been photographed since 1995 has now been declared extinct. Its fate is cause for wider alarm

AI is like a lunch – there’s no such thing as a free one

When the tech giants monetise LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini, will our thoughts be the currency?

Nick Foster: ‘Predictions are mostly nonsense’

The high-flying futures designer tells the truth about the remarkable field in which he works

A new dotcom bubble? AI hype has yet to translate into profits

The top two tech firms are worth twice the rest of the FTSE 100 combined but valuations haven’t turned into revenues

The treaty that could end the plastic deluge

The man behind landmark research into microplastics thinks a UN pact that could be signed next week might help us clean up our act

Social media blocking apps are addicting to us too

The tech originally designed to sever dependency on social media has evolved to be the problem

Budget cuts close UK body tackling antimicrobial resistance

Move to close Fleming Fund also threatens standing as a reliable global partner

Why the way we communicate matters

We rarely make ourselves as clear as we might think, and the consequences can be disastrous

The evolutionary biologist with her own dramatic story

Ella Al-Shamahi is the erudite presenter of a breathtaking new series about our 300,000-year history. But her own evolution story isn’t short of drama either…

The telescope that’s about to change astronomy for ever

The Rubin Observatory in Chile is set to reveal unfathomable numbers of galaxies, asteroids, comets and more

Does AI make us dull? Students have answered that question

An MIT experiment shows exactly what happens to the brain when writing an essay with the help of AI – and without it