science
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Rosetta mission: ESA considers moving Philae lander from shadow – live updatesEuropean Space Agency scientists say they’re still trying to locate the Philae lander but it is “stable” and sending data -
Philae lander sends back first ever image from cometScientists receive picture of bumpy surface where Philae touched down after anxious overnight wait following gaps in radio link with Rosetta mother ship -
Rosetta mission: Philae's landing site on comet 67P – in picturesAfter the lander’s dramatic landing on Wednesday, the European Space Agency has released pictures of where it first touched down before bouncing, and of its descent
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Comet 67P becomes landing site for Philae in historic touchdownSafe landing gives scientists their first chance to ride a comet and study close up what happens as it gets closer to the sun -
The Guardian view on the Rosetta mission: a human ingenuity triumphEditorial: This great exploration has demanded unswerving tenacity, as well as Europe-wide cooperation
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Philae space lander sends back first image of comet landing – video
The European Space Agency has released the first image from the Philae lander moments before it touched down on a comet
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Rosetta: Philae tight landing spot on comet prompts tough decisions for EsaRosetta mission controllers must decide whether to risk making lander hop from spot near cliff face blocking sunlight to its solar panels
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Philae comet lander alien ‘cover-up’ conspiracy theories emergeProbe landing attracts allegations that 67P is not a comet but alien object kept secret by Nasa and European Space Agency
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Rosetta mission: what went right, what went wrong and how it can be fixedThe European Space Agency celebrated landing its Philae probe on comet 67P but not everything went to plan, leaving scientists with problems to solve
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Rosetta mission: Philae's new home on Comet 67P – interactive graphicThe view is somewhat restricted, but the first ever picture from the surface of a comet reveals a lot about the Philae lander’s predicament
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Pictures of comet surface are a miracle, but photographically disappointingGuardian head of photography says pictures from Rosetta space probe lack beauty of earlier pioneering space images
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Itchcraft by Simon Mayo - reviewGrrlScientist: Our teen-aged hero, Itch, is back. This, the third book in a mystery-thriller trilogy, follows Itch’s continuing adventures as he and his friends try to outwit criminal masterminds who are desperately seeking radioactive chemical element 126 -- an element that still lurks out there. Somewhere.
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Just a theory?Plate techtonics, general relativity, alien abductions, evolution, magic water, climate change, quantum mechanics... all just theories. But not in the same way. A lovely short film explains why
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Why women in science are annoyed at Rosetta mission scientist's clothingAlice Bell: ESA can land their robot on a comet. But they still can’t see misogyny under their noses.
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Juncker axes Europe's chief scientific adviserJames Wilsdon: While Europe’s scientists were watching Rosetta, President Juncker quietly scrapped the role of his top scientific adviser. What does this mean for the future of evidence-based policy in Europe?
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Rosetta: Philae probe gets a personality of its own — courtesy of TwitterThe European Space Agency’s Philae probe has just become the first robotic spacecraft to live tweet its own comet landing
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Virgin Galactic pilot tells of being thrown clear as spacecraft broke upPeter Siebold was unaware that system controlling descent had been unlocked early by co-pilot Michael Alsbury, who died in crash
talking points
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Itchcraft by Simon Mayo - reviewGrrlScientist: Our teen-aged hero, Itch, is back. This, the third book in a mystery-thriller trilogy, follows Itch’s continuing adventures as he and his friends try to outwit criminal masterminds who are desperately seeking radioactive chemical element 126 -- an element that still lurks out there. Somewhere.
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Just a theory?Plate techtonics, general relativity, alien abductions, evolution, magic water, climate change, quantum mechanics... all just theories. But not in the same way. A lovely short film explains why
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Why women in science are annoyed at Rosetta mission scientist's clothingAlice Bell: ESA can land their robot on a comet. But they still can’t see misogyny under their noses.
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Scientific SchadenfreudeGrrlScientist: Advice to scientists on how to game the Altmetrics score system.
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Stuff Matters wins Royal Society's 2014 Winton Prize for Science BooksGrrlScientist: Mark Miodownik’s Stuff Matters has won the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. Stuff Matters, published by Viking, takes the reader on a lively and engaging exploration of some of the myriad materials that shape the modern world.
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Unusual varieties of soul butterfliesNew research challenges an age-old assumption about the basic structure and function of the neuron.
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Animals in the news: in picturesPolar bears and other animals that have made themselves known this week
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Simon Beck's astonishing landscape and snow art illustrates the cold beauty of mathematics – in pictures
Mathematics Simon Beck's astonishing landscape and snow art illustrates the cold beauty of mathematics – in pictures
Alex Bellos samples Simon Beck’s stunning mathematical drawings, created by running in snowshoes across freshly laid snow in the Alps -
Cern chooses its next director generalJon Butterworth: At its 173rd closed session, Cern council selects the Italian physicist, Dr Fabiola Gianotti, as the organisation’s next director general
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Is the sexist scientific workplace really dead?Athene Donald: A recent study claims that low numbers of women in senior academic science are due to choices made in childhood by girls, not anything to do with the environment at work. Can this be true?
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Macau's magic square stamps just made philately even more nerdyAlex Bellos: Postage goes meta as new Chinese stamps celebrate an ancient number pattern by themselves appearing in a pattern
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Phase transitions: steam engines, Dark Matter and the HiggsJon Butterworth: How the physics of the industrial revolution now connects cosmology and particle physics
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Whooooo said that? The distinct voices of owlsGrrlScientist: This interesting video shares some of the calls made by a few owl species, including the calls made by one of the world’s most widespread bird species, the barn owl.
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Pumpkins, plutonium and polio - blogs roundupPosts on our network this week included the science of cashing in on halloween, the discovery of a new frog species in New York, and why we need to banish the idea of the scientist as a crazy genius
in depth
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Rosetta mission: what went right, what went wrong and how it can be fixedThe European Space Agency celebrated landing its Philae probe on comet 67P but not everything went to plan, leaving scientists with problems to solve
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Pictures of comet surface are a miracle, but photographically disappointingGuardian head of photography says pictures from Rosetta space probe lack beauty of earlier pioneering space images
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John Postgate obituaryMicrobiologist whose research contributed to the production of vital chemicals for use in industry and agriculture
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Starwatch: Jupiter and the LeonidsAlan Pickup on our largest neighbour, now moving into a good position for observation, and on the annual Leonids meteor shower
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Steven Pinker: ‘Twitter can hone your skills as a writer’Steven Pinker, the linguist and author on social media, publishing his genome and sex with a robot
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Your science questions answeredFrom explaining why you can see through a pane of glass but not a sheet of paper to the mystery of invisible ink
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Britain is an ageing country – so maybe it’s time we started seriously to cater for people’s needsAs baby boomers move towards outnumbering children under five, a social crisis is looming which will affect every generation
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Why snow machines are cold comfort as the Alps warmAs another winter sports season begins, Charlie English looks at the effects of climate change on a $70bn global industry
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Geoengineering: the ethical problems with cleaning the airIntervening in climate change currently raises more questions than answers when it comes to manipulating the atmosphere, writes Nicola Davis
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Barcodes, bank cards and digital TV: the secret numbers that run our livesStand-up mathematician Matt Parker explores the hidden numbers and patterns that keep our data safe and make our gadgets work
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Uncovering the secrets of John Franklin’s doomed voyageRyan Harris had been searching for the wreck of the lost ship of John Franklin for six years. Now, having finally located it, he tells Robin McKie what the find may reveal about the doomed expedition to discover the North West Passage
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After 10 years, Rosetta and Philae are ready to rob a comet of its secretsThe £1bn European spacecraft will seek answers to questions such as the origins of life on Earth. But anxious scientists know the mission faces perils in its final manoeuvres
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Rosetta selfie, bands of Mars and ghostly spokes of Saturn – in picturesOur monthly roundup of best space-related imagery in the known universe includes the second largest spiral galaxy found by Hubble Space Telescope, the North America Nebula and a snap of the cosmos filled with millions of galaxies
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Sad students see science experiments go up in smoke aboard Antares rocketChildren at schools in Texas, New Jersey and Michigan had worked for a year to develop projects for the International Space Station
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Antares disaster is stark reminder of the 'incredible dangers' of spaceflightFormer Nasa engineer and analysts question theories of old Soviet engine in Antares explosion, noting such missions are inherently risky
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Starwatch: The November night skyAlan Pickup on the stars, planets and meteors to look out for during the coming month
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Jack Dominian obituaryOther lives: Psychiatrist, lay Roman Catholic theologian and author of several books on love, sex and relationships
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You’re powered by quantum mechanics. No, really…Biologists have long been wary of applying quantum theory to their own field. But, as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden reveal, it might explain much natural phenomena
opinion
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Rosetta’s success will illuminate the origins of life – it’s a billion well spentUsama Hasan: The comet 67P is a relic from the solar system’s birth: studying it will offer insight into Earth’s beginnings – and could avert future collisions
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George Monbiot: Movies about abandoning Earth reflect the political defeatism of our age: that adapting to climate breakdown is preferable to stopping itInterstellar: magnificent film, insane fantasy
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Hip-hop, don’t stop - it’s good for your mental healthPete Cashmore: Listening to a brilliant rhymer vent negative feelings you may recognise in yourself is far from depressing
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Freezing eggs may help women pursue careers, but society must change tooAarathi Prasad: Until our testosterone-fuelled social structures are addressed, the technology that offers us respite from the biological clock is wasted
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Andrew Brown: A study of 550 societies suggests that belief in a personified deity that watches over believers may confer evolutionary advantagesThe gods of harsh things
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I don’t sanction this misuse of 'sanction'David Marsh: Word meanings can sometimes seem counterintuitive, but the government’s latest assault on language should be resisted – not sanctioned
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No, no, no! Victorians didn’t invent the vibratorFern Riddell: The idea that orgasms were administered to women by doctors is pure fantasy
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Badger culls must be based on facts, not panic and biasSteve Backshall: Unless every single badger is killed, the survivors move around, resulting in an increase in bovine TB. But will politicians listen?
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The NHS can no longer act as if minds don’t matterJuliette Jowit: The physical basis of mental illness is clear. ‘Parity of esteem’ in health services is a necessity, not a luxury
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I’m a doctor fighting Ebola. And no, you aren’t going to catch it from meBenjamin Black: Health workers who have gone to west Africa to tackle Ebola are increasingly being stigmatised at home by people terrified they will bring the virus back with them. So here are the facts
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David Shariatmadari: Buzzwords: 'Earth-shatteringly good' pizzas may not live up to their billing, but, linguistically, we'll never escape the cycle of exaggeration
The hyperbole we love to hate -
A deadly explosion won't stop me flying into space with Virgin GalacticWilson da Silva: I’m devastated for the pilots and the families of those involved in the Mojave tragedy. But I will still take my place as one of the first 100 to fly with Virgin Galactic
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Is wasting time on the internet actually good for you? Read this and find outEmma Brockes: Maybe the sheer banality of the web could induce the kind of fugue state that allows ideas to flourish
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The IPCC is stern on climate change – but it still underestimates the situationBill McKibben: UN body’s warning on carbon emissions is hard to ignore, but breaking the power of the fossil fuel industry won’t be easy
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Nuclear waste must be out of sight, but not out of mindRebecca Bell: We’ve got an awful lot of nuclear waste to safely dispose of and it’s going nowhere without our help
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Nick Cohen: Nay-sayers are all too quick to decry scientific findings if they don’t agree with their own cracked viewsIt’s not just on Ebola that good science must prevail
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Oliver Burkeman: Neither language nor the basic arrangement of our bodies determines how we put time in space. So what does?Whether you face your past or walk into your future, time and space are complex
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New York’s memories of Typhoid MaryEmma Brockes: Notebook: YYou’re unlikely to catch Ebola from lift buttons, but that hasn’t stopped New Yorkers treating a nurse and doctor like reincarnations of Mary Mallon
pictures and video
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Rosetta space probe touches down on comet – video
The European Space Agency Mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, celebrates as the Philae lander, dispatched from its mothership Rosetta, touches down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
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Rosetta probe gears up for a tough landing – video report
The European Space Agency (ESA) explains the process of landing the Philae lander on the surface of comet 67P
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Rosetta's audacious mission to land on a comet – in picturesOn Wednesday, Rosetta will attempt to drop a lander called Philae onto the surface of a comet. This is the story of the European Space Agency’s extraordinary decade-long mission in images
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Picture This – E numbers: the weird, the wonderful and the colourfulThe chemicals that give your food flavour and colour
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ESA releases animation of probe's landing on comet - video
The European Space Agency releases an animation illustrating next week's planned landing on a comet of a robotic probe
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Animals in the news: in picturesPolar bears and other animals that have made themselves known this week
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Astronauts play with floating ball of water in space - video
During Expedition 40, Nasa astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman – along with European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst – explored water surface tension in microgravity on the international space station. The crew 'submerged' a sealed GoPro camera into a floating ball of water the size of a softball and recorded the activity with a 3D camera
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Simon Beck's astonishing landscape and snow art illustrates the cold beauty of mathematics – in picturesAlex Bellos samples Simon Beck’s stunning mathematical drawings, created by running in snowshoes across freshly laid snow in the Alps
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Sir Richard Branson: self-proclaimed experts wrong about Virgin Galactic explosion - video
Sir Richard Branson hits out at 'self-proclaimed' experts who asserted that an explosion brought down the Virgin Galactic space-plane last week
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Virgin Galactic's descent function activated early, say investigators - video
US investigators say that a function designed to help Virgin Galactic's crashed space plane descend was deployed early during the accident
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Virgin Galactic spaceship crash site combed by investigators - in picturesUS transport officials say report of what caused SpaceShipTwo crash in California desert may not be published for up to a year
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Virgin SpaceShipTwo crash kills pilot – video
One of two pilots on board the experimental Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo craft was killed when it crashed during a test flight in the Mojave Desert of California
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Antares rocket explodes seconds after launch in Virginia - in picturesA private unmanned craft carrying supplies for the International Space Station explodes on launch after a ‘catastrophic’ equipment failure
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Rocket explodes and crashes after takeoff from Nasa base - video
A rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station has gone down in a spectacular explosion in the US state of Virginia
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SpaceX Dragon concludes fifth mission to International Space Station - video
The commercial cargo ship, SpaceX Dragon, concludes its fifth mission to the International Space Station and is headed back to Earth
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Google executive Alan Eustace jumps 130,000ft from edge of space - video
Google's vice president Alan Eustace sky dives from the edge of space, breaking the world altitude record previously set by Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner
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Information Age: 'The whole place lit up' – 1950s telephone operator recalls the death of King George VI – video
Rose Young tells Guardian science editor Ian Sample about her work as a telephone exchange operator during the 1950s
Caution should be the watchword for scientists trying to predict the future