Certain canines can learn using cues from people’s gaze, gestures, attention and voices, researchers find

Whether it is a piece of food or a four-letter expletive, words can be learned by young children overhearing adults – but now researchers have found certain dogs can do something similar.

Scientists have discovered canines with the unusual ability to learn the names of myriad objects can pick up such labels by eavesdropping on conversations.

Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam
They have poisoned emperors, taken over insect brains and survived atomic bombs. This Dantean journey through fungal hell is riveting – though frogs may disagree

Sylvia Plath’s poem Mushrooms is a sinister paean to the natural world. Her observations on fungi are freighted with foreboding, noting how “very / Whitely, discreetly, / Very quietly” they “Take hold on the loam, / Acquire the air”. The poem ends: “We shall by morning, / Inherit the earth. / Our foot’s in the door.”

Plath’s ominous ode from 1959 forms the opening salvo in an exhibition dedicated to fungi’s creepy omniscience. Far from merely getting a foot in the door, the door has been blasted off its hinges by fungi’s preternatural capacity to reproduce, spread, evolve – and annihilate. How they thrive with a perverse intensity on discarded, dead and dying things, impelling the cycle of decay and regrowth. As coprophiliacs, necrophiliacs and silent assassins, they are legion, and have been around for over a billion years.

Astronaut aboard the International Space Station is in stable condition, Nasa said, and a spacewalk was canceled

Nasa is considering a rare early return of its crew from the International Space Station (ISS) over an unspecified medical issue involving one of the astronauts, after cancelling a planned spacewalk that had been scheduled for Thursday, the agency said.

A Nasa spokesperson said the astronaut with the medical concern, whom she did not identify, was in a stable condition on the orbiting laboratory.

Meaty diets results in far greater greenhouse gas emissions than crunchy dry food, study on 1,000 types of dog food found

We must not let geoengineering be shaped behind closed doors. Climate justice demands an inclusive approach

As the world faces the challenges of the climate crisis and critical threshold levels or tipping points may be reached soon, a disputable idea is gaining momentum as a potential solution: solar geoengineering – the deliberate reflection of sunlight to cool the planet. Advocates argue it could buy us time. Critics warn of unknown risks. Some see it as a possible emergency break if temperatures spiral out of control. Others call it a dangerous distraction that undermines meaningful climate action.

Research into solar geoengineering is advancing, including exploration of techniques such as stratospheric aerosol injection, which would involve spraying tiny reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions, and marine cloud brightening, which aims to enhance the reflectivity of low-lying marine clouds. While stratospheric aerosol injection is not being conducted, these technologies are being studied with increasing urgency in the global north. In the global south, however, they remain largely invisible to public discourse and policymaking.

Previous studies have underestimated amount of plastic in atmosphere, scientists say

Prehistoric humans had advanced planning abilities and understood how poisons worked over time

Analysis finds those who stopped using medication saw weight return four times faster compared with other weight loss plans

People who stop taking weight loss jabs regain all the weight originally lost in under two years, significantly faster than those on any other weight loss plan, according to a landmark study.

Weight loss medications, known as GLP-1 agonists, were originally developed as treatment for diabetes and work by mimicking the glucagon-like peptide (GLP) 1 hormone which helps people feel full.