Planet Earth

Could lightning have sparked life on early Earth? © Getty Images

Lightning strikes may have sparked life on early Earth

The evolution of the ocean’s shadowy ‘twilight’ zone may be linked to climate change © Getty Images

Evolution of life in the ocean’s shadowy ‘twilight’ zone may be linked to climate change

A Bengal tigress with a catchlight in her eye lies up to her neck in the dark shadows of a water hole. Her name is Maya 'The Enchantress', and she has orange and black stripes with white patches on her head. Shot with a Nikon D810 in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in India on 13 May 2017, which just happened to be my birthday!
ISO 220, 800mm, f/5.6, 1/1000

What goes up: World Nature Photography Award winners

How to hunt for fossils in the UK

How to hunt for fossils in the UK

Extreme annual fires reduce forests' ability to store carbon © Getty Images

Extreme annual fires reduce forests’ ability to store carbon

The science of whale vomit

The bizarre (and pretty gross) science of whale vomit

A prototype of a CubeSat adrift in Earth's orbit for testing

Everyday science

Science’s cutting-edge: seven ideas you should know about in 2021

Jupiter flung the dinosaur-killing comet into Earth, new study suggests ©Gerd Altmann/Pixabay/PA News

Jupiter flung the dinosaur-killing comet into Earth, new study suggests

Quartz and some of the associated minerals that give it color enter into the fossilizing process as solutions, gels, and sols. Although they move as liquids, gels and sols are made up of very small particles bound together by weak electrical bonds. In this specimen, the linear arrays of small round structures were produced by local condensations of particulate mineral. During their consolidation, small puddles of pigment formed that are unrelated to the structure of the bone itself.

On Thin Ice: RPS Science Photographer of the Year winners unveiled

THUMB101ReneeCapozzola

A Dance of Sharks and Gulls: Underwater Photography Prize Winners

TPOTY 2020 Winners

Ghostly Arctic Fox and a Snail on a mission win the Travel Photographer of the Year awards

Yesterday evening again two polar bears came close to our ship. Probably they were the same we saw already a couple of days before our arrival at the floe. Nobody was out on the ice when the bears appeared and there was no danger for the expedition’s participants. The bears stayed several minutes around Polarstern and the ice camp. For our own safety and for the safety of the polar bears we don’t want them to get used to be our neighbors. The expedition’s lead and professional polar bear guards therefore chased them with a flare gun. The bears have not been injured and left the area immediately. This procedure agrees with the complex safety concept of the MOSAiC expedition. October 10, 2019, Esther Horvath

In pictures: Following the mission to discover how the climate crisis is changing the Arctic

UK flooding could increase by 15-35 per cent by 2080 © Getty Images

UK flooding could increase by 15-35 per cent by 2080

A graphic introduction to human history © Getty Images

A graphic introduction to human history from Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens

Antarctica: An icy time machine © Alamy

How Antarctic ice can help us travel back in time