Google has put the algorithm it used to achieve quantum supremacy to work. It generated verifiably random numbers, which could be used one day in encryption or lotteries

Plane manufacturer Airbus is working with airlines to test a fuel-reduction scheme inspired by the v-formation used by geese

The interstellar comet Borisov is making its closest approach to the sun and Earth, giving astronomers their best look yet

A relatively small quantum computer has broken a number-factoring record, which may one day threaten data encryption methods that rely on factoring large numbers

Time travel brings up paradoxes that break the laws of physics, but multiple similar timelines running parallel to one another could get around this

A space rock seen in July 2017 passed through Earths atmosphere and back out the other side in a rare event known as a grazing fireball

The starry night toad has been documented by biologists for the first time since 1991 in Colombia. But unlike other such stories of rediscovered species, we never really lost it

Artificial intelligence may be able to work out the maximum lifespans of extinct species and early humans. The technique relies on analysing specific regions of DNA that are linked to ageing

Many countries and groups already use military drones, but Turkey is about to be the first to have a military drone armed with a machine gun

Googles Sycamore quantum computer, which recently demonstrated its dominance over ordinary computers, is now breaking records in quantum chemistry

A global analysis of street connectivity has identified the cities that are easiest to get around and shown they have less car use and greater travel by foot

To solve the problem of Japan’s ageing workforce, tech companies have developed exoskeletons that help older workers continue to do heavy manual labour

The longest running study of insect biomass in the world suggests it is twice as large in Great Britain as it was in the 1960s, but has been declining since the 1980s

Two new species of parasitic “rodeo” ant have been discovered in Texas. They ride the queens in other ant colonies to fool the workers into looking after them

A strange discrepancy in global temperatures 8000 years ago can be explained if sea ice is more vulnerable to the effects of warming than we thought

Seven people who experienced a fever every few weeks have finally been given a diagnosis of CRIA syndrome, which was a previously unknown disorder

Even a total vacuum is full of strange quantum fluctuations, which have now been caught making heat leap across empty space for the first time

Training facial recognition algorithms requires masses of data, and big tech companies can go to extreme lengths to get that, says Annalee Newitz

Amazingly, it is possible to see the spiral arms of Andromeda, our nearest galaxy 2.5 million light years away – if you just know where to look

Discrimination towards indigenous communities is rife among conservation groups – and sometimes enforced at the barrel of a gun, says Curtis Abraham

The best way to protect gorillas is to address human, animal and ecosystem health together, says the Ugandan veterinarian who pioneered the One Health approach

Cave paintings discovered in Indonesia reveal ancient artists were conjuring imagined scenes 20,000 years earlier than we thought – but who painted them?

Opaque solar panels could be turned into window glass for tall buildings by punching hundreds of tiny holes in them so our eyes perceive them as transparent

An ancient wall painting on a Greek island shows a monkey species that lives around the Indus Valley in Asia – suggesting long-distance trade in the Bronze Age

A plan instigated by Dominic Cummings, adviser to UK prime minister Boris Johnson, would see scientists get up to 15 years of funding to research areas like quantum computing

Left-wing political campaigns pay three times as much to reach right-wing voters on Facebook, and vice versa, which may be exacerbating political polarisation

Raging bushfires have been blanketing Sydney in smoke for weeks, and concerns over health are rising

The rise of the private space industry may mean allowing Earth microbes to escape to other worlds, but is it worth the risk?

Indias government wants to build one of the largest face recognition systems in the world, but campaigners are concerned

A rigorous randomised trial has put to bed the idea that tapping or flicking a can of beer makes bubbles come to the top and prevents the liquid fizzing out

It certainly wasn’t big, and probably didn’t bang – and the surprises in the conventional story of the universes origins don’t end there

Most of us are convinced that were coherent individuals who are continuous in time. Theres just one problem with this sense of self – it can’t exist

Are you a human, or a human-Neanderthal hybrid? The concept of the species, one of the most basic in biology, may not be as well-defined as we think

A common misconception is that evolution naturally selects for biological complexity, eventually creating advanced organisms like us. That couldnt be further from the truth

Physicists are finally getting their heads round what information truly is – and using it to gain new insights into life, the universe and, well… everything

Schrödingers dead-and-alive cat embodies the uncertainty of the quantum world. But whether parallel realities truly exist is a question less of science than belief

Predators are a problem for Trinidad’s killifish: in streams where the problem is worst the killifish grow more brain cells, perhaps to help evade the hunters

A phenomenon called shifting baseline syndrome means we easily forget how much more wildlife there used to be – and it may hamper conservation campaigns

It took billions of years for Earth’s air to grow rich in oxygen, but it may have been destined to do so once photosynthetic bacteria began pumping out the gas

The Greenland ice sheet lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2018, leading to sea level rise that contributes to coastal flooding during storms

One of the world’s biggest genealogy websites has been bought by a company that provides law enforcement agencies with genomic sequencing technology for forensic DNA work

The buried town of Beta Samati in Ethiopia was once part of the Empire of Aksum, which dominated East Africa for centuries and traded with the Roman Empire

Minuscule dust particles can clump together to form entire planets, and they seem to require help from static electricity so they don’t bounce off one another

A 3D-printed bunny contains tiny glass beads in which there are DNA-encoded instructions to replicate the rabbit, and they can still be read after nine months

Titan’s lakes, seas and atmosphere are full of methane, and a simulation has revealed that it might come from an underground reservoir spanning the whole moon

Machine-learning algorithms are being used to tackle the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, one of the fiendishly difficult Millennium Prize Problems

A volcanic island in New Zealand has erupted, killing at least five people with dozens more missing

The English founded Jamestown, Virginia in the 17th century to search for gold. They didn’t find much, but that wasn’t for lack of effort or scientific skill

The world’s oceans have lost 2 per cent of their oxygen on average over the past 50 years, alarming scientists who warn that the trend will impact fisheries

Astronomers are about to get their best opportunity to observe the interstellar comet Borisov as it reaches its closest point to Earth and the sun on 8 December