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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.

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

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Environment

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

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Space

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

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British primatologist Jane Goodall with a chimp

Life

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

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Mind

How playing a musical instrument helps children learn to read

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Environment

Jane Goodall, dogged advocate for the natural world, has died aged 91

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Life

Evolution may explain why women live longer than men

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An Extinct-in-the-wild Socorro dove chick (right) and its father at Whipsnade Zoo (c) Whipsnade Zoo

Life

See the first-ever Socorro dove to hatch at Whipsnade Zoo

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Mind

Autism may have subtypes that are genetically distinct from each other

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Chemistry

The mystery of highly reactive oxygen has finally been solved

Singlet oxygen can be damaging in both cells and batteries but it has taken almost 60 years to work out exactly when it shows up in chemical reactions within both

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Space

NASA’s asteroid deflection test had unexpected and puzzling outcome

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Mind

How brain organoids are revealing what truly makes humans unique

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Health

We now know why a belly button becomes an ‘innie’

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Health

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

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