Researchers find the longest-living mammal is particularly good at fixing faulty DNA – and cold water may help

With a maximum lifespan of more than 200 years, the bowhead whale lives longer than any other mammal. But how the 80-tonne beasts survive so long has never been fully explained.

Now scientists have found hints of an answer and are drawing up plans to see whether the same biological trick can be performed in humans. If so, it raises hopes for boosting healthy ageing and protecting organs and tissues during surgery and transplantations, they say.

Study finds lapses of attention in sleep-deprived people coincide with wave of fluid flowing out of the brain

It’s never a great look. The morning meeting is in full swing but thanks to a late night out your brain switches off at the precise moment a question comes your way.

Such momentary lapses in attention are a common problem for the sleep deprived, but what happens in the brain in these spells of mental shutdown has proved hard to pin down.

Researchers suggest ‘sex-specific strategies’ after analysis of cardiovascular health improvements

Men may need to exercise twice as much as women to achieve the same reduction in coronary heart disease risk, according to researchers, who say healthy living guidelines should take account of the sex differences.

Scientists analysed physical activity records from more than 80,000 people and found that the risk of heart disease fell 30% in women who clocked up 250 minutes of exercise each week. In contrast, men needed to reach 530 minutes, or nearly nine hours, a week to see the same effect.

Scientists warn of ‘insidious risks’ of increasingly popular technology that affirms even harmful behaviour

Turning to AI chatbots for personal advice poses “insidious risks”, according to a study showing the technology consistently affirms a user’s actions and opinions even when harmful.

Scientists said the findings raised urgent concerns over the power of chatbots to distort people’s self-perceptions and make them less willing to patch things up after a row.

Astrophysicist proposes a ‘radically mundane’ theory for why humans have yet to encounter extraterrestrials

For centuries, great thinkers have pondered why, given the hundreds of billions of planets in the galaxy, we have seen no compelling signs of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Now, scientists are mulling an intriguing possibility: if aliens exist, their technology may be only marginally better than ours. And having explored their cosmic neighbourhood for a while, they simply got bored and stopped bothering, making it difficult to detect them.