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This week's magazine

30 August 2025

Issue 3558

Â鶹´«Ã½ issue 3558 cover
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Editor's picks

Illustration of a teenage girl who is the offspring of a Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) mother and Denisovan (Homo sapiens denisova) father. A bone fragment with this hybrid ancestry was found in the Denisova Cave in Russia. The bone belonged to a female who was at least 13 years old and died around 90,000 years ago. It was known from genetic analysis of other fossils that the two species had interbred, but this is the first first-generation offspring of such a pairing to be found.

Humans

Understanding the Denisovans means understanding ourselves

Comment
Inside the revolutionary idea that we can negotiate with cancer

Health

Inside the revolutionary idea that we can negotiate with cancer

Features
Atlantic bottlenose dolphin

Life

We will soon be able to talk with other species. Which will be first?

Features
A skull unearthed in Harbin, China, turns out to belong to a Denisovan

Humans

An incredible Denisovan skull is upending the story of human evolution

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Illustration of a teenage girl who is the offspring of a Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) mother and Denisovan (Homo sapiens denisova) father. A bone fragment with this hybrid ancestry was found in the Denisova Cave in Russia. The bone belonged to a female who was at least 13 years old and died around 90,000 years ago. It was known from genetic analysis of other fossils that the two species had interbred, but this is the first first-generation offspring of such a pairing to be found.

Humans

Understanding the Denisovans means understanding ourselves

Categorising the Denisovans as a distinct species would allow us to more comprehensively trace our own evolutionary development

Comment

News

Environment

Rare 'triple-dip' La Niña may explain why 2023 was so hot

The record-breaking global temperatures seen in late 2023 may have emerged partly because of unusual conditions in the Pacific Ocean in the preceding years

News

Physics

Quantum device detects all units of electricity at once

News

Environment

Earth's carbon sinks are being eroded by climate change feedback loops

News

Health

Covid-19 seems to age blood vessels – but only among women

News

Health

Having radio waves beamed into our head ramps up our sense of smell

News

Environment

Unprecedented Arctic heatwave melted 1 per cent of Svalbard's ice

News

Technology

NASA and IBM built an AI to predict solar flares before they hit Earth

News

Life

How cocoa beans' microbiomes are key to the finest chocolate flavours

News

Health

Brain implant lets man 'experience joy' for the first time in decades

News

Physics

Flower-like origami patterns could inspire folding spacecraft

News

Life

Artificial superfood for bees boosts colony reproduction

News

Space

New moon discovered orbiting Uranus is its smallest one

News

Health

Lesser-known food allergens are actually behind many serious reactions

News

Space

Ceres may have been habitable at just half a billion years old

News

Health

Could lacing food with fat-trapping microbeads help us lose weight?

News

Mind

Our brain doesn't actually reorganise itself after an amputation

News

Physics

Nuclear fusion gets a boost from a controversial debunked experiment

News

Environment

Super-cool cement could stop buildings trapping heat inside

News

Environment

The colour of your car has a big impact on urban heat

News

Space

There might be a 'Planet Y' hiding in the outer solar system

News

Technology

US military wants to secure the internet by making it more quantum

News

Humans

Treasures from sunken Egyptian city of Canopus emerge from the sea

News

Analysis

Environment

How to tackle environmental issues when the world can't agree

The failure to agree a global treaty on plastic pollution highlights how the UN’s requirement for unanimity holds back environmental policy, but there are better ways to make progress

News

Aperture

John Glenn during the fiery re-entry, holding steadfast, believing his heatshield had come loose and he may burn up in the atmosphere - the capsule is illuminated in orange light due to intense heat.

Space

NASA's first space photos restored in stunning detail

The new book "Gemini and Mercury Remastered" features iconic images from the earliest days of human space exploration

Regulars

Features

A skull unearthed in Harbin, China, turns out to belong to a Denisovan

Humans

An incredible Denisovan skull is upending the story of human evolution

An ancient skull has finally shown us what the Denisovans looked like. Now it turns out they, not Neanderthals, might be our closest relatives, redrawing our family tree and transforming the hunt for Ancestor X

Features

Life

We will soon be able to talk with other species. Which will be first?

Features

Health

Inside the revolutionary idea that we can negotiate with cancer

Features

Culture

Holy Mary on window Statuette of Holy Mary and vase with plastic flowers in window on a house with bright pink walls, Irish cottage, Ireland

Humans

Alice Roberts investigates the unstoppable rise of Christianity

Why did Christianity grow from a niche sect to a religion followed by billions? Michael Marshall explores Alice Roberts’s latest book Domination

Culture

Environment

New book about the story of carbon dioxide is a rousing call to action

Culture

Life

Â鶹´«Ã½ recommends the 55-year-old Songs of the Humpback Whale

Culture

Earth

The captivating story that Earth’s ‘boring’ layered rocks tell us

Culture

More

Lunar Crater Radio Telescope: Illuminating the Cosmic Dark Ages This illustration depicts a conceptual Lunar Crater Radio Telescope on the Moon?s far side. The early-stage concept is being studied under grant funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program but is not a NASA mission. Credit: Vladimir Vustyansky

Space

Could a huge lunar telescope be our best chance of spotting aliens?

In this latest instalment of Future Chronicles, an imagined history of future inventions, Rowan Hooper explores the advances that meant an optical telescope with an effective mirror size of 3000 km could be built on the moon

Comment

Space

Get ready for a glorious Harvest Blood Moon on 7 September

Regulars

Mind

Why do we love fake lips, but hate fake meat?

Comment

Tom Gauld on waiting for our first alien visitors

Regulars

Twisteddoodles on what a cat is really thinking

Regulars

Regulars

How a well-trained New Zealand dog took on quantum computers – and won

Comment

How a well-trained New Zealand dog took on quantum computers – and won

Feedback is alerted by a reader to the latest effort to create a quantum computer that can factorise extremely large numbers, and discovers an abrupt shift to K9 tech

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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