Nature or nurture: can genes make us behave ‘badly’?
How much do our genes determine about our lives, and could they influence traits like risk-taking, antisocial behaviour or even violence? Ian Sample talks to Kathryn Paige Harden, a behavioural geneti...
26 Jun 19min
Extreme heat: is the UK becoming a 40C country?
Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for England, with temperatures potentially reaching 40C (104F) in some places. Europe is also dealing with a debilitating heatwave, with s...
23 Jun 14min
The audacious plan to refreeze the Arctic
Sea ice is melting fast and worsening the climate crisis. But what if there were a way to thicken it again? Madeleine Finlay is joined by environment editor Damian Carrington to discuss a bold attempt...
18 Jun 16min
Should we ban social media for under-16s?
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has announced a social media ban for under-16s, as part of an online safety drive that aims to go even further than the world’s first ban, introduced by Australia ...
15 Jun 20min
‘The undruggable became druggable’: a gamechanging treatment for the world’s deadliest cancer
A daily pill can double survival time in patients with the world’s deadliest cancer, according to the results of a clinical trial that experts are saying is a gamechanger and one of the biggest breakt...
11 Jun 14min
The dinosaurs who survived the asteroid
While many dinosaurs were wiped out when a colossal asteroid struck Earth 66m years ago, one group survived: birds. Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, has written a...
9 Jun 17min
Heatstroke, sports washing and VAR psychology: the science of the World Cup
It’s just a week until the first whistle of the 2026 World Cup. To mark the occasion, Madeleine Finlay talks to Ian Sample about the science behind the tournament. It’s likely to be one of the hottest...
4 Jun 20min
The incredible science of the sleeping brain
Humans have been wondering why we sleep for thousands of years. Is sleep’s purpose rest and relaxation, memory consolidation or maybe cognitive processing? In the last 15 years, scientists have discov...
2 Jun 14min
