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Elon Musk's DOGE task force is reportedly being given unchecked access to the computers that run the US government, and experts warn that it risks bringing down systems and leaking sensitive data

A report in The Washington Post says that the UK government has ordered Apple to reveal encrypted data held by any user, anywhere in the world – here is what you need to know

A prosthetic hand that weighs about half that of a human hand also enables wearers to carry out intricate tasks, such as tying knots

Until now, 90 per cent of the excess heat created by greenhouse gas emissions has been drawn down into the ocean, but this capacity for heat absorption is now being lost, which could lead to longer marine heatwaves and harm ocean life

A tiny chip on the tip of a fibre-optic cable can passively harness light to perform AI computations, dramatically reducing the amount of energy and computing power required

The sounds that make up humpback whale songs follow some of the same statistical rules seen in human languages, which may be because of how they are learned

Genetic analysis suggests a form of mosquito found in urban subway systems evolved in the Middle East thousands of years ago

If you have the patience to repeatedly switch an egg between a hot and a colder pan, you'll be rewarded with an amazing taste and texture, say physicists

A remarkable plesiosaur fossil reveals that the extinct reptiles had scales like modern sea turtles, unlike the ichthyosaurs that lived during the same period

A lidar scanner has a resolution so high it can image ridges and indentations of only 1 millimetre on objects hundreds of metres away – and capture objects as distant as 1 kilometre

The risk of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth seems to be creeping up as astronomers gather more data, but does that mean we should be scrambling to prepare for an impact in 2032?

A group of male koalas were filmed grooming and playing together, in contrast to their solitary reputation, probably as a result of an unusually dense population in southern Victoria

A temporary loss of access to key datasets on levels of CO2 in the atmosphere added to concern about the potential fallout of the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science

Barcodes contain a checksum – an ingenious use of mathematics that even lends itself to a fun way to surprise your friends, says Katie Steckles

In Shroud, Adrian Tchaikovsky's intriguing new novel, two women marooned on a strange moon encounter alien life – and struggle to recognise intelligence in other beings, finds Emily H. Wilson

Winning images from the 2025 Walk of Water photo competition showcase vanishing frozen landscapes, from sparkling ice caves to melting glaciers

A driven teenager up nights working on computer schemes. Could this be Bill Gates? Chris Stokel-Walker reads the much anticipated story of the billionaires's early years, as told by the man himself

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti coined the word futurism in 1909, going on to take an extreme rightward swerve into politics. This way of thinking about the future still influences us today, says Annalee Newitz

Feedback digs into the first peer-reviewed paper from the Game of Thrones author, and concludes that he may have picked the wrong fictional universe to analyse

Increasing numbers of people believe Earth has probably been visited by aliens. That’s a societal problem, says Tony Milligan