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marine life

plastic bottles in sea

Environment

Thought plastic was bad enough? Here's another reason to worry

We knew marine plastic strangles birds and poisons fish. But it can also pick up some deadly hitch-hikers – with even more profound consequences

Features

Four ways dolphins are amazing – and one way they’re not

Life

Four ways dolphins are amazing – and one way they’re not

Features

leaping dolphin

Life

Inside the secret military programme that uses dolphins as weapons

Features

Person stands beneath the Milky Way

Space

Are we alone in the universe? Science says it’s a definite maybe

Analysis

Sperm whales are tracking fishing boats and stealing their fish

Earth

Sperm whales are tracking fishing boats and stealing their fish

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Mars has complex organic material that may be from ancient life

Space

Mars has complex organic material that may be from ancient life

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Seals only sleep with half their brain when they're out at sea

Life

Seals only sleep with half their brain when they're out at sea

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The most elusive whales reveal their secrets in their wakes

Life

The most elusive whales reveal their secrets in their wakes

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A picture of the experimental setup

Technology

There is only one anti-shark tool for surfers that seems to work

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Silhoutted person looking at stars

Space

I'm working on a universal language to let us speak to aliens

It's time to find a new way to speak across the stars, says Douglas Vakoch, head of METI, the body dedicated to messaging possible alien civilisations

Comment

Earth

Half of life on Earth has vanished since we arrived on the scene

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Space

Exoplanet with a cloudless sky may let us see inside a gas giant

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Life

Giant sea spiders sit and wait for prey to knock themselves out

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Earth

Acid lakes may be a false alarm but we can’t afford complacency

Leader

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