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This week's magazine

11 October 2025

Issue 3564

Â鶹´«Ã½ issue 3564 cover
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Editor's picks

Mature female patient lying on table entering MRI machine in hospital setting. Medical professional in white coat standing nearby. Professionalism, precision, and modern health technology.; Shutterstock ID 2540873879; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other:

Comment

Commercial health tests promise peace of mind, but do they deliver?

Comment
Why everything you thought you knew about your immune system is wrong

Health

Why everything you thought you knew about your immune system is wrong

Features
2GME5J3 Plane leaving trail of chemicals to fight wildfire. Dramatic red smoke against setting sun

Environment

One of Earth’s most vital carbon sinks is faltering. Can we save it?

Features
What’s my Alzheimer’s risk, and can I really do anything to change it?

Health

What’s my Alzheimer’s risk, and can I really do anything to change it?

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Mature female patient lying on table entering MRI machine in hospital setting. Medical professional in white coat standing nearby. Professionalism, precision, and modern health technology.; Shutterstock ID 2540873879; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other:

Comment

Commercial health tests promise peace of mind, but do they deliver?

Elective tests and whole-body health check-ups are increasingly popular among those who can afford them. But the practice isn't as risk-free as it might appear

Comment

News

Earth

Shackleton knew his doomed ship wasn’t the strongest before sailing

Endurance, the wooden ship that Ernest Shackleton took to Antarctica in 1915, wasn't built to withstand frozen seas – and the famous explorer knew it

News

Mind

Our brain 'swivels' to focus on sounds from different directions

News

Health

Cannabis extract found to be effective for lower back pain

News

Physics

We may finally know what causes will-o’-the-wisps

News

Space

Astronomers captured an incredible view of M87’s black hole jet

News

Humans

Ancient artists created giant camel engravings in the Arabian desert

News

Health

Egg cells made with DNA from human skin fertilised in the lab

News

Chemistry

The mystery of highly reactive oxygen has finally been solved

News

Health

We now know why a belly button becomes an 'innie'

News

Mind

How playing a musical instrument helps children learn to read

News

Space

NASA's asteroid deflection test had unexpected and puzzling outcome

News

Mind

Autism may have subtypes that are genetically distinct from each other

News

Life

Evolution may explain why women live longer than men

News

Space

Rogue planet gains 6 billion tonnes per second in record growth spurt

News

Environment

Antarctica may have crossed a tipping point that leads to rising seas

News

Mind

Your happiness in life may not be U-shaped - here's how it could vary

News

Life

20 bird species can understand each other’s anti-cuckoo call

News

Space

See an astronaut prepare for spaceflight by journeying through a cave

News

Analysis

2AGP4K2 FBI Laboratory analysis of Castor Beans used to manufacture the highly poisonous agent Ricin. Ricin (/'ra?s?n/ RY-sin), a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a highly potent toxin. A dose of purified ricin powder the size of a few grains of table salt can kill an adult human. The median lethal dose (LD50) of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of body weight if the exposure is from injection or inhalation (2 milligrams for an average adult).

Technology

Should we worry AI will create deadly bioweapons? Not yet, but one day

AI tools are being used to design proteins and even viruses, leading to fears these could eventually be used to evade bioweapon controls

News

Life

How Jane Goodall changed the way we see animals – and the world

News

Aperture

Hui Yu photographed this imposing portrait of a tropical flat-faced longhorn beetle on a family photography trip to a tropical rainforest at Gunung Jerai in Malaysia. A light bulb in a mosquito net attracted local invertebrates during the night, and in the morning there were lots of them to look at. Hui Yu is keen on macro-photography and chose the most colourful animal to take a portrait of. 'It had a strange look, like an alien, but it wasn't angry. It sat still on the branch all the time,' she says. 'I want people to know that all creatures, even small ones, count. So don't destroy the forest.'

Life

Stunning images highlight fight to save Earth’s rich biodiversity 

From an alien-looking flat-faced longhorn beetle to an abandoned baby rhino, images at London’s Natural History Museum show what we stand to lose from the decimation of global biodiversity

Regulars

Features

Why everything you thought you knew about your immune system is wrong

Health

Why everything you thought you knew about your immune system is wrong

Immunologist Daniel Davis wants to eradicate long-held myths and replace them with wonder at the complexity of the body’s defence system

Features

Environment

One of Earth’s most vital carbon sinks is faltering. Can we save it?

Features

Health

What’s my Alzheimer’s risk, and can I really do anything to change it?

Features

Culture

FKE16F Ladram Bay. Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. Devon. UK.

Earth

The Whispers of Rock is a personal journey through aeons of geology

In her new book, earth scientist Anjana Khatwa writes a love letter to Earth's rocks and mountains, offering a passionate blend of science and spirituality

Culture

Environment

Hannah Ritchie's new book on net zero is a breath of fresh air

Culture

Life

Â鶹´«Ã½ recommends Horizon: Secrets of the brain

Culture

Space

Blue Planet Red is wrong about Mars – but it's surprisingly poignant

Culture

More

A tough police detective interrogates a crime suspect with a tattooed face in an interrogation room; Shutterstock ID 1875220249; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other:

Mathematics

Learning to play nice with other people

How did cooperation emerge in a cut-throat world? There are clues in the prisoner's dilemma experiment, says Peter Rowlett

Regulars

Health

Why not all ultra-processed foods are bad for you

Comment

Environment

How pie-in-the-sky conspiracies distract from climate dangers

Comment

Tom Gauld on a puzzling new theory

Regulars

Twisteddoodles on a magazine for tadpoles

Regulars

Regulars

We are horrified to discover that not every rose has a thorn

Comment

We are horrified to discover that not every rose has a thorn

Feedback is shocked to learn that one of our most cherished metaphors involving roses and thorns really needs to be revisited. That's what happens when you invite the botanists to play

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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