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Features

Explore the most exciting new ideas and emerging concepts in science, health, technology and the environment with Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s exclusive in-depth articles, interviews and long reads.

Six pointed snowflake

Humans

Kenneth Libbrecht interview: A grand unified theory of snowflakes

Snowflakes can form in either a plate or column shape, but no one understood why – until physicist Kenneth Libbrecht investigated. His theory is the result of two decades making snow in the lab

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Life

The secret life of cheese: How marvellous microbes create its flavour

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Mind

What doing magic tricks for birds is revealing about animal minds

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S0J9ED Cascade hops fresh off of the vine.

Humans

How climate change is shaking up the hops that give beer its flavour

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Humans

Strange but true? Test yourself in our barely believable science quiz

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Humans

Occam’s razor: The medieval monk who saw the power of simplicity

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Two senior woman in launderettes, laughing, portrait

Humans

The real reasons we laugh and what different types of laughter mean

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MN6GWA iridescence on the surface of some soap bubbles illuminated from below

Life

How the shimmering secrets of iridescence could keep us cool

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Life

When geckos play ball and spiders spar: The strange evolution of fun

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The San Rafael waterfall, the biggest falls in Ecuador, located on the boundary of the Amazon with The Andes. San Rafael, Napo, Ecuador. February 2016

Environment

The Amazon is turning into savannah – we have 5 years to save it

We have been hearing warnings about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest for decades, but experts say a catastrophic tipping point is now just over the horizon. Are they right? And if so, what can we do to pull things back?

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Humans

Steven Pinker interview: Why humans aren’t as irrational as they seem

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Space

3 of the most exciting space telescopes planned for launch by 2034

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Space

How the James Webb telescope will rewrite the story of the universe

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Space

Is our solar system a cosmic oddity? Evidence from exoplanets says yes

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