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Scientists are calling for urgent action on free-living amoebas – a little-known group of microbes that could pose a growing global health threat. Here’s what you need to know.

Why do some people live to 100 while their sibling dies decades earlier? Is it luck, lifestyle, or something written into their DNA?

The world is warming. This fact is most often discussed for the Earth’s surface, where we live. But the climate is also changing from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean. And there is a clear fingerprint of humanity’s role in causing these changes through greenhouse…

While we have sent probes billions of kilometres into interstellar space, humans have barely scratched the surface of our own planet, not even making it through the thin crust.

Campaigns like Veganuary (an initiative that encourages people to eat a plant-based diet in January) have been hugely successful in raising awareness about the climate and the health benefits of eating this way. However, making the switch longer term is not always easy – especially when there are usually limited…

There is a major sticking point often overlooked in the ceasefire negotiations between Ukraine and Russia currently being held in Abu Dhabi. This relates to the fact that, as part of any agreement, Kyiv is being asked to give up the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

No accident waiting to happen can ever have delivered on its promise so spectacularly as Lord Mandelson, with the continuous revelations of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The decision by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to appoint Mandelson as ambassador in Washington DC always appeared a…

Imagine a stranger starts chatting with you on a train platform or in a shop. The exchange feels ordinary. Later, it appears online, edited as “dating advice” and framed to invite sexualised commentary. Your face, and an interaction you didn’t know was being recorded, is pushed into feeds where strangers…

In late January, the gold price reached an all-time peak of around US$5,500 (£4,025). January 30 saw one of the largest one-day falls in prices, which sank by nearly 10% after hitting a record high only the day before.

A revival of a beloved and notorious Irish play from 1907, Catriona McLaughlin’s production of The Playboy of the Western World treats J.M Synge’s play as a work with urgent contemporary force, creating a story with resonance in 2026.

Table tennis and film have a surprisingly entangled history. Both depended on the invention of celluloid – which not only became the substrate of film, but is also used to make ping pong balls.