Science & technology
Paint by numbers
How physics can improve image-generating AI
The laws governing electromagnetism and even the weak nuclear force could be worth mimicking
Flower power
A flower’s female sex organs can speed up fertilisation
They can also stop it from happening
Animal experimentation
Only 5% of therapies tested on animals are approved for human use
More rigorous experiments could improve those odds
Red moon risen
China has become a scientific superpower
From plant biology to superconductor physics the country is at the cutting edge
Trunk calls
Like people, elephants call each other by name
And anthropoexceptionalism takes another tumble
Fourth time lucky
Elon Musk’s Starship makes a test flight without exploding
Crucially, the upper stage of the giant rocket survived atmospheric re-entry
On thin ice
Zany ideas to slow polar melting are gathering momentum
Giant curtains to keep warm water away from glaciers strike some as too risky
Two legs good
The quest to build robots that look and behave like humans
The engineering challenges involved are fiendish, but worth tackling
Drone warfare
Many Ukrainian drones have been disabled by Russian jamming
Their latest models navigate by sight alone