In a ground-breaking study over ten years in the making, scientists have observed two supermassive black holes orbiting each other hundreds of millions of light years from Earth. “For a long time, we’ve been looking into space to try and find a pair of these supermassive black holes orbiting as a result of two galaxies merging,” said University of New Mexico professor Greg Taylor in a statement.

Brain scientists at a Canadian university are aiming to get a better handle on how sleep affects memory, problem solving and other cognitive functions in what they are billing as the largest such study ever to be done.

Technology far exceeded expectations in LISA Pathfinder test.

An exclusive look at the dreams Santiago Ramon y Cajal recorded to prove Freud was wrong.

The appendix protects against recurrent infection by Clostridium difficile (C difficile) and possibly other pathogenic bacteria, according to a study published in the December issue of Clinical Gastroenterology.

New research builds on the pioneering use of machine learning algorithms with brain imaging technology to "mind read."

A small skin patch harnesses enough power from sweat to run a radio for 48 hours. The same technology could be used to power health sensors of the future

Urban house finches incorporate more fibres from cigarette butts into their nests if they have live ticks in them, suggesting the toxic chemicals in the butts may deter the parasites

Anti-bacterial soaps and gels are useless and may cause harm, 200 scientists and medics have warned.

Nasa’s new rover is intended to store rock samples it plucks from the Martian surface. But what happens after that? Richard Hollingham finds out.

The cacophony of noise town centres could trigger heart problems, a new study suggests, after scientists found that fluctuating sounds on busy high streets disturb normal cardiac rhythms. Researchers from Nottingham Trent University found that constant changes in noise – even at low levels – had an immediate and disruptive effect on the patterns of participants’ normal heart rates.

Humans probably shouldn't go to Mars until we figure this out.

"This is bigotry, this is all about being a fanatic. How are they going to teach biology now? How are they going to talk about science?" On an online forum about the government's decision to exclude the theory of evolution from the national curriculum, a passionate discussion is under way. "Evolutionary theory is one of the most powerful and fundamental theories in modern science. To describe it as 'controversial' is unbelievable," says one commenter.

A sedimentologist weighs in on beach selection, tools and the perfect sand-to-water ratio

Claiming that evolution is “debatable, controversial, and too complicated for students,” Turkey’s board of education has decided to stop teaching Darwinian natural selection in its schools. The move has infuriated the country’s secular opposition, but it could embolden other countries to do the same.

The gene-editing technology called CRISPR has its origins as a bacterial immune system against viruses, a feature which could be turned against them in the future.

Paracetamol is popular for relieving pain. But if you are pregnant, you should think twice before popping these pills according to the researchers in a new study.

Prof Stephen Hawking has called for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020. They should also aim to build a lunar base in 30 years' time and send people to Mars by 2025. Prof Hawking said that the goal would re-ignite the space programme, forge new alliances and give humanity a sense of purpose.

Future generations will fear, rather than fend for, the global environment.

Living near a noisy road seems to affect couples who are trying get pregnant, increasing the likelihood that it will take them between six to 12 months. That’s according to an analysis of 65,000 women living in Denmark. Jeppe Schultz Christensen of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen and his team made this discovery by analysing data from the Danish National Birth Cohort, a project that ran from 1996 to 2002.

A rare meat allergy used to be limited to places the lone star tick calls home. But recently it's started to spread.

Will coffee taste worse as climate change causes the planet to warm?

In 2015, a team of Scottish scientists announced they had found a way to slow the speed of light. By sending photons through a special mask, the researchers altered their shape.

Older men tend to have “geekier” sons who are more aloof, have higher IQs and a more intense focus on their interests than those born to younger fathers, researchers claim. The finding, which emerged from a study of nearly 8,000 British twins, suggests that having an older father may benefit children and boost their performance in technical subjects at secondary school.

Engineered microbes turn a bacterium's immune response against itself using CRISPR.

It began with the kind of research the Trump administration wants to unfund: fiddling about with tiny obscure creatures. And there had been US Republican hostility to science before Trump, of course, when Sarah Palin objected to federal funding of fruit fly research (“Fruit flies – I kid you not,” she said). The fruit fly has been a vital workhorse of genetics for 100 years. Jennifer Doudna’s work began with organisms even further out on the Palin scale: bacteriophages, tiny viruses that prey on bacteria.

The Kepler space telescope's latest and most complete planet catalog adds 219 new candidates, including one that could be a close cousin to Earth.

Geophysicists are ramping up their efforts to monitor major undersea faults for movement, and search for signs of the next catastrophic quake.

A 13th-century conflict between faith and science ultimately led to a surprising outcome: a medieval multiverse theory. By Sarah Laskow.

Over time, leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise. If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he’s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?

The video above shows some brief interviews with children who have been homeschooled by Evangelical Christians. As you might expect the emphasis was more about studying the Bible than other subjects. However, it was difficult to watch just how little emphasis was placed on science. A girl who may have been about 12 struggled to multiply 12×12, 6×6, and even 5×5. The mom laughs and says that they don’t focus much on math, but she knows her bible!

A specific type of irritable bowel syndrome is associated with exhaustion of the immune system in patients, researchers have discovered for the first time.

Here's proof of how far we've come in science - in a world-first, researchers have recorded up-close footage of a single DNA molecule replicating itself, and it's raising questions about how we assumed the process played out. The real-time footage has revealed that this fundamental part of life incorporates an unexpected amount of 'randomness', and it could force a major rethink into how genetic replication occurs without mutations.

The renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is working on a spacecraft that can travel at a fifth of the speed of light – meaning it could reach the nearest star and send back images of a suspected ‘Second Earth’ within 25 years – in a bid to save humanity. In a speech at the Starmus Festival, Professor Hawking warned humans must soon colonise another planet if we are to survive.

A team of researchers wants to ‘bake were nobody baked before’. Sometime in 2018, a microgravity oven is slated for launch to the International Space Station where it will bake the first space-grade bread in history. As anything on the International Space Station, this won’t be your regular bread. Designed and inspected from all scientific angles, the space bread will not only be filling and fresh, but also safe for the special environment.