The closer we look at time, the stranger it gets

While some breakfast cereals deliver little more than sugar, others can be a vital source of vitamins and minerals

Can a wearable neuromodulation device that delivers small electric shocks banish anxiety?

Everyone has trouble sleeping from time to time, even sleep scientists

I wonder how many discoveries in human history were made because someone thought: Let’s take a look around the corner? This time, the corner – figuratively speaking – is the region of space just beyond Pluto. More precisely, the area where the Sun’s influence begins to fade – the boundary of the heliosphere. Think of the heliosphere as a vast bubble, emanating from the Sun, that envelops our Solar System. Solar wind blasts out from the Sun in all directions, but eventually, it fizzles out the further away it gets. Where the winds are strong, they push back more harmful cosmic radiation gusting in from elsewhere in our Galaxy, shielding us. But the further these winds travel, the weaker they become, until, eventually, the solar particles become inconsequential. This is the place that scientists consider to be the edge of our Solar System and the beginning of the interstellar medium. Here, space roils with a cosmic zoo of exotic particles from strange places. This is exactly what NASA’s recently launched Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) wants to study. Its mission is to make sense of the stuff that’s arriving here from other parts of space, to understand how our Sun forms a barrier that protects us from the more harmful elements out there, and to chart what’s going on at the very edge of what we know. Get the full story in the November issue.

Our emotions can play a big part in how we respond to our furry friends – but not in the way you might think

New research suggests that a combination of volcanic activity, cold summers and famine brought the deadly plague to Europe

The number of people with the world’s deadliest infection is climbing in the UK and US. Why is tuberculosis returning and how do we fight back?

Feeling angry? That's not your lizard brain kicking in.