Jet fuel from thin air

In 2025, Russian-born scientist Kseniia Petrova picked up some spliced frog embryos from a laboratory in France and brought them back to the USA to aid her research into ageing and cancer. She was detained by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), charged wi ...  Show more

This month, India began the immense undertaking of surveying its population of 1.4 billion people in the world’s largest ever census. Inspired by this huge task, the Unexpected Elements team explores some population science. First, counting – or miscounting – populations. The glo ...  Show more

Scientists in Switzerland have developed a system which uses solar energy to extract gases such as hydrogen and carbon dioxide from the air and turns them into fuels for transport. So far they have only made small quantities in experimental reactors, however they say with the rig ...  Show more

The science is unequivocal: human-made climate change is leading the world into an environmental crisis, and time is running out to prevent permanent damage to ecosystems and make the planet uninhabitable for many of us humans.

As communities around the world increasing ...

Even with the best efforts, it will be decades before we see any change in global temperatures through our mitigation efforts. Given the pace of global heating and the time lag before our emissions reductions have any impact, scientists are exploring additional ways of reducing g ...  Show more

Geoengineering is already underway from Australia to the Arctic as scientists try to save places threatened by global heating. It’s time for a global conversation about how we research these powerful techniques, with agreements on how and where to deploy them. Global temperature ...  Show more