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Featuring everything from eggnog to uranium oxide, these 12 brain-twisting conundrums will get you in the festive spirit and test your scientific knowledge

Choosing presents at Christmas can be a bewildering task. Brain studies are revealing the surprising truth about which toys support cognitive development in kids

The Great British Bake Off's Josh Smalley explains how to bake the perfect freestanding gingerbread Christmas tree, complete with strong icing glue, windows and just the right biscuit texture

Geologists surprisingly declined to formally declare a new epoch, but proponents of the Anthropocene will continue to highlight humanity’s impact on the planet

Neuralink’s first two human trials grabbed headlines this year, but it still isn’t clear how the firm’s technology compares with other brain-computer interfaces

Three people in the US received a genetically modified pig kidney in 2024, marking another step towards animal-to-human organ transplants becoming routine

In the 1970s, John Calhoun built a sprawling mouse metropolis. The dystopian results influenced human society for decades

From warp drives to quantum tricks, here are five ways that physicists have figured out how to theoretically travel back in time

From repeat lightning strikes to identical lottery draws, mathematician Sarah Hart explains why incredibly unlikely events happen all the time

As families gather for festive time together, tensions can rise. David Robson delves into the science to find the best technique to stop arguments getting the better of us

Here are 10 words that entered our vocabulary this year, capturing discoveries at the cutting edge of science, elusive emotions and the various ways technology is changing our lives

We assembled a crack team to create a record-breaking snowflake. Along the way, we learned just how impressive the natural kind really are

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, came strangely far south this year and there may be more of the same while the sun is experiencing a solar maximum

For a truly exquisite glimpse of plants and animals, check out some of the top entries and the winner of the 2024 Evident Image of the Year contest

Evidence for the origins of complex language can be found in creative two-word insults such as busy-body and kill-joy

The discovery of ancient cities in Asia and the Americas point to earlier bouts of social and climatic upheavals. The good news is that humanity survived, says Annalee Newitz

AI made incredible progress in 2023, but with a less-impressive pace of development this year, it may be that existing techniques are reaching their limits

Our Future Chronicles column explores an imagined history of inventions and developments yet to come. This time we fast forward to the 2050s, when people gain the ability to hibernate and use it for far more than escaping the winter blues

Red lights continued to flash on the climate dashboard as many aspects of the natural world declined in 2024, although there were a few green shoots of hope to cling to, says Graham Lawton

Events across the globe have conspired to create a sense of chaos, but many fields of research can help us make sense of the world, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein