Our friendly – and not so friendly – gut bacteria lie at the core of healthy ageing. Research is now revealing what it takes to maintain a youthful microbiome

It’s not just diet and exercise that governs how well you age. Your mindset, social connections and sense of purpose make a big difference, and it’s never too late to start working on them

Many of us know people who live into their 90s, but hardly anyone makes it to 100. Studies are now revealing that factors that really make a difference

Tech millionaire turned longevity pioneer Bryan Johnson devotes more than 6 hours a day to trialling different methods to turn back the clock. Can the rest of us learn anything from his radical approach?

AI tools including Perplexity and Open AI’s GPT-4 often provide one-sided answers to contentious questions, and don’t back up their arguments with reliable sources

Trapping ultracold atoms with laser light let researchers magnify and then image the wave functions of atoms that were previously too close together to look like anything but a blob

Inflammation is a vital part of the immune response, but it seems that the system can sometimes go awry, resulting in chronic inflammation that has been linked to conditions such as cancer

Experiments on Earth indicate some common species of bacteria and fungi could survive for several days on the moon's surface, suggesting missions must take stronger precautions to avoid contamination

For at least 10,000 years, humans across South-East Asia were being carefully preserved after death by being smoke-dried – a tradition that continues to this day in some cultures

The UK government has announced a raft of tiny nuclear power projects, while Russia, China and a host of tech giants are also betting big on small nuclear reactor designs. Does the idea make sense and can they really be built any time soon?

While Mars today only has a wispy remnant of an atmosphere, it may once have had one hundreds of times thicker with a pressure three times that on Earth

Chamkaur Ghag is on a mission to find the 85 per cent of the universe’s matter that we haven’t yet identified. He details his hopes for the major scientific experiment – and what the future could hold

The global health and economic benefits of covid-19 vaccines came to between $5 trillion and $38 trillion in their first year, showing an incredible return on investment

As drones have risen to prominence on the battlefield, so too has electronic warfare, in which adversaries attempt to mask, jam or trace radio signals. Now, a new stealthy radio device could help give people the edge, letting them fly drones without detection

Changes in rock formations from before and after the mass extinction event 66 million years ago may reflect how dinosaurs acted as ecosystem engineers, shaping vegetation and even the meandering of rivers

Trial participants who received an increased weekly dose of Wegovy lost 19 per cent of their body weight in a year on average, but also saw a higher risk of painful skin sensations and nausea

A 1.3-kilometre swim by a jaguar is the longest ever confirmed, but the cat's motives for making the journey are unclear

Childhood obesity rates have surpassed those of undernutrition for the first time, suggesting efforts to combat malnutrition will have to shift gears.

A study of festivalgoers suggests that drinking beer and sharing a bed makes you more attractive to mosquitoes

The gas giant has been measured for the first time in decades, trimming 8 kilometres from its diameter