Biology
The bandicoot bandits causing a truffle kerfuffle
The unlikely gourmands are pilfering thousands of dollars of farmed black truffles a night, but a PhD student has been working to get them to change their ways.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
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Explainer
Health
Dim light, failing sight: Behind this classic sign of middle-age
The menu looks foggy. The tiny instructions are a blur. It’s that time when your vision, a marvel of evolution, needs some help sharpening up. What’s going on in the eye itself? And what else could possibly go wrong?
- by Jackson Graham
Analysis
Paris 2024
Not so simple: Boxer Imane Khelif and the science of sex
Humans exhibit a wide variety of differences in sexual development. There is no simple binary. And a history of women playing sports is also a history of questions about their sex.
- by Liam Mannix
A leg or a useless paperweight: When can a severed limb be reattached?
When a surfer’s leg washed up on a NSW beach after he was mauled by a three-metre shark, the speculation began. Would surgeons reattach it?
- by Kate Aubusson
Dolphins that play together get the girls together, WA study finds
The wonder of a good wingman and the power of play are clear in the world of Western Australia’s world-famous bottlenose dolphins, a global research team finds.
- by Charlotte Vinson
The first Australian to undergo cryopreservation is now on ice. This scientist says he won’t come back
A Sydney man who died this month lies frozen in liquid nitrogen at a regional cryogenics facility. But will he ever be resurrected?
- by Angus Dalton
Future of medical research in doubt as question mark lingers over $45 million funding
The future of a government funding program which has assisted teams developing artificial hearts and turning spider venom into drug therapies is in doubt.
- by Mary Ward
Series
Science
Brain worms, dark matter and stranger things. We explain
We put the natural world under a microscope, from rogue waves and zombie fungus to colliding atoms and meteors.
Exclusive
Wildlife
Meet the scientist playing God by cryo-freezing 100 species
An Australian scientist is on a life-saving mission with a cryogenic collection of animal cells frozen at minus 196 degrees.
- by Angus Dalton and Laura Chung
A monkey has been born with fluorescent eyes and fingers in a world first. Here’s why
Chinese scientists injected a monkey embryo with stem cells from another crab-eating macaque, with extraordinary results.
- by Angus Dalton
Life on Mars? This tiny South American mouse might hold the answer
Mummified mice found on mountain summits on the Chile-Argentina border have re-defined what we know about the limits of mammals – and they may help the search for life on other planets.
- by Angus Dalton