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“Eight years ago, a groundbreaking scientific achievement changed the way we understand the world at the microscopic level. Physicist David Nadlinger, working at the University of Oxford, captured the first-ever photograph of a single atom. This astonishing feat won top honors at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Science Photography Competition in the UK, and the image has since become a symbol of progress in quantum physics. But what does this breakthrough mean for science? Let’s take a deeper look.”

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“Recent scholarship has concluded that Neanderthals made a second major migration from Eastern Europe to Central and Eastern Eurasia between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. But the routes they took have long been a mystery — primarily because there are few archaeological sites connecting the two regions. In a new analysis, a team of anthropologists — using computer simulations — has offered a map of possible pathways, which concludes that Neanderthals likely used river valleys as natural highways and traveled during warmer periods to move approximately 2,000 miles (3,250 km) in less than 2,000 years.”

“By affecting cows’ diets, climate change can affect cheese’s nutritional value and sensory traits such as taste, color, and texture. This is true at least for Cantal — a firm, unpasteurized cheese from the Auvergne region in central France… Cows in this region typically graze on local grass. But as climate change causes more severe droughts, some dairy producers are shifting to other feedstocks for their cows, such as corn, to adapt. ‘Farmers are looking for feed with better yields than grass or that are more resilient to droughts,’ but they also want to know how dietary changes affect their products, says animal scientist Matthieu Bouchon.”

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“In many ways, the last six months of TV have been defined by impeccably crafted throwback series that aren’t embarrassed to act like television shows. The best series of the first half of 2025 include medical dramas, police procedurals, and quirky small-town comedies — the exact kinds of shows that were abundant long before the invention of the VCR, let alone streaming. But the situation is more nuanced than that. Most of these shows feel modern in different ways. The medical drama is partially serialized, with the whole season covering a single hospital shift, while the small-town comedy takes place in an Inuk community in the frozen plains of northern Canada. And several of our 10 best of the year so far are adventurous in other ways…”