Mind
Neuroscience can’t tell us the way to govern people’s brains
Comment
This week's magazine
27 June 2026
Issue 3601
On the cover
Editor's picks
Mind
How menopause radically changes the brain 鈥� and what happens after
Features
Mind
Parenting may permanently improve brain health for mums and dads
Features
Mind
The surprising ways your brain changes from your 20s to your 40s
Features
Space
The lunar botanist with a plan to farm vegetables on the moon
Features
Mind
How some people’s brains make an extraordinary recovery from stroke
Features
Mind
Our brains have their first thoughts unexpectedly early in life
Features
Mind
Why you need to future-proof your brain in middle age and how to start
Features
Table of contents
快猫短视频
A note from the anniversary editor
Send us your memories of 快猫短视频 for our 70th anniversary issue
News
Mind
Autism may have two distinct subtypes that vary by brain activity
News
Mind
Autism and ADHD are on the rise due to widening diagnostic criteria
News
Life
Remarkable fossils rewrite the story of how animals conquered the land
News
Environment
Why El Ni帽o鈥檚 impacts on the UK are hard to predict
News
Space
We’ve found a mysterious substance on Titan and Pluto
News
Technology
People training new AI models admit they just get chatbots to do it
News
Life
Complex life on Earth may last 500 million years longer than expected
News
Health
Cervical cancer deaths have plummeted thanks to HPV vaccine
News
Space
Gas from Uranus reveals it has an icy centre
News
Life
Pigeons lock their eyes in place when they are flying
News
Technology
Inside the start-up aiming for a giant leap in robot intelligence
News
Health
Chilling the body with drugs could limit brain damage from stroke
News
Earth
Almost the whole of Japan moved eastward after 2011 earthquake
News
Environment
A promising natural technique to remove CO2 could backfire
News
Health
Faecal transplant makes the brains of old mice act young again
News
Humans
Ancient monument marked summer solstice centuries before Stonehenge
News
Health
Sperm have been made magnetic to allow IVF inside the body
News
Environment
Arctic Ocean reaches tipping point that could be dire for marine life
News
Humans
Oldest known plague outbreak killed hunter-gatherer children
News
Life
Walking shark found in Papua New Guinea is new to science
News
Features
Mind
The surprising ways your brain changes from your 20s to your 40s
When does your brain reach adulthood? We're now understanding the many ways the organ continues to聽mature聽decades after society first deems聽you an adult
Features
Mind
Our brains have their first thoughts unexpectedly early in life
Features
Mind
Parenting may permanently improve brain health for mums and dads
Features
Mind
How some people’s brains make an extraordinary recovery from stroke
Features
Mind
Why you need to future-proof your brain in middle age and how to start
Features
Mind
How menopause radically changes the brain 鈥� and what happens after
Features
Space
The lunar botanist with a plan to farm vegetables on the moon
Features
Culture
Space
The best sci-fi novel in 2026 so far 鈥� plus 6 other great reads
Sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson rounds up her favourite reads of the year to date 鈥� and highlights one particular book as her top pick
Culture
Life
The 17 best popular science books of 2026 so far
Culture
Life
Our verdict on The Selfish Gene: An unpopular piece of popular science
Culture
More
Sponsored
What lies beneath? The new era of Earth imaging
What happens when geophysicists, mathematicians and computer scientists collaborate to solve the planet's most complex subsurface challenges? Meet the innovators driving a revolution in how we see the Earth.
Advertising
Health
Can prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics help your ageing microbiome?
Comment
Space
We may have finally solved cosmology’s chicken-or-the-egg problem
Comment
Tom Gauld on classic literature with added mathematics
Regulars
Twisteddoodles on appropriate leaving gifts for scientific colleagues
Regulars
Regulars
Comment
Hold the onions 鈥� and see if they make you cry
Feedback isn't sure what to make of a ground-breaking piece of research into the understudied topic of "subjective individual variability in onion tearing and its relationship to chemosensory sensitivity"
This Week鈥檚 Letters
Letters
If everyone got rid of their mobile phones, what would happen?
Last Word
Why do some of us enjoy exercising聽and others don鈥檛?
Last Word
Why do some plants eat insects if they are capable of photosynthesis?
Last Word
This week鈥檚 new questions
Last Word
