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Mathematics

Mathematicians found a guaranteed way to win the lottery in 2023

A pair of mathematicians studied the UK National Lottery and figured out a combination of 27 tickets that guarantees you will always win, but they tell 51�� they don't bother to play

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Earth

China started drilling ultra-deep holes in 2023 in a hunt for oil

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Technology

The best robot photos of 2023, from fashion shows to Hollywood strikes

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MRI scans of a healthy brain (left) and a brain with amyloid plaque deposits (right), a sign of Alzhiemer's disease

Health

2023 saw a cautious hope for Alzheimer's treatment but doubts remain

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Life

The best animal photos of 2023, from hyenas to southern stingrays

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Environment

The best photos of the natural world in 2023

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Space

The biggest science news stories of 2023 as chosen by 51��

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A nurse prepares a shot for Jonathan Halter as the German embassy begins its roll out of BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for German expatriates at a Beijing United Family hospital in Beijing, China January 5, 2023. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Health

Covid-19 'emergency' ended in 2023 but the virus still lingers

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EVROS, GREECE - AUGUST 31: A firefighters runs as wildfire intensifies in the village of Sidiro and Yannuli in Evros, Greece on August 31, 2023. Efforts to extinguish wildfire continues. (Photo by Ayhan Mehmet/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Environment

Why 2023 was almost certainly the hottest year ever recorded

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Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA?s James Webb Space Telescope shows this to great effect. Cooler cosmic dust glows at the longer mid-infrared wavelengths, displaying the structure of WR 124?s nebula. The nebula is made of material cast off from the aging star in random ejections, and from dust produced in the ensuing turbulence. This brilliant stage of mass loss precedes the star?s eventual supernova, when nuclear fusion in its core stops and the pressure of gravity causes it to collapse in on itself, and then explode. As MIRI demonstrates here, Webb will help astronomers to explore questions that were previously only left to theory about how much dust stars like this create before exploding in a supernova, and how much of that dust is large enough to survive the blast and go on to serve as building blocks of future stars and planets.

Space

Six of the most amazing space pictures from 2023

This year saw an extraordinary number of awe-inspiring images of objects in space, thanks in part to the James Webb Space Telescope. Here are the ones that dazzled us most and why they are important

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Physics

LK-99 superconductor mania swept the internet for a few weeks in 2023

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Technology

The spy balloon saga of 2023 inflated US-China political tensions

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Health

Cancer in young people is rising and 2023 saw a plan to figure out why

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Health

Wegovy and Ozempic made 2023 a revolutionary year for weight loss

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