Science
How the world's highest-dwelling mammal survives above 6,700 metres
Andean leaf-eared mice endure minus 60 degrees and half the oxygen of sea level by turning their whole metabolism into a furnace, a study in Science finds.
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Good things happen every day — they just rarely make the front page. Day Mercury gathers the evidenced progress from science, medicine, the environment, the economy and society. No disaster ticker, no clickbait. How we work →
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The first placebo-controlled human evidence that a GLP-1 drug shifts epigenetic ageing clocks comes from an exploratory analysis of 84 people, and its authors are the first to say so.
Latest stories
Environment
Bloomberg Philanthropies Commits $260 Million to Turn Ocean Pledges Into Enforcement
The money targets the gap between the roughly 10% of the ocean nations have promised to protect and the far smaller share that is actually managed, funded and policed.
Science
How Devoted Dads Evolved: Citizen Scientists Rewrite the Story of Parental Care
By pairing three decades of fieldwork with iNaturalist photos, researchers doubled the known cases of parental care in harvestmen – and traced how fatherhood arose again and again.
Environment
After Decades of Loss, Southeast Asia's Mangroves Are Growing Back
Four decades of satellite data reveal a hopeful reversal: since 2010 the region has swung from the epicenter of mangrove loss to a driver of global recovery.
Culture
A Roman guardian spirit, buried for 1,600 years, resurfaces at Hadrian's Wall
Archaeologists at Vindolanda uncovered a rare carved 'Genius' beneath a barracks floor, its fine details preserved intact.
Science
NASA telescope pins down a 'lighthouse' pulsar's magnetic field for the first time
IXPE's X-ray vision confirmed how high-energy particles escape one of the cosmos's most extreme objects – and found its magnetism calmer than expected.
Health
A century of children growing taller: how the world pushed back stunting
A new dataset reconstructing more than a hundred years of children's heights shows that severe malnutrition is not inevitable – and Japan's history proves it can be beaten.
Technology
On a Sicilian volcano, drones map the gases that foreshadow an eruption
German research teams are testing laser- and sensor-equipped drones on Vulcano, gathering readings that were once too dangerous to collect on foot.
Science
A 72,000-study audit finds preprints hold up surprisingly well
When biomedical papers posted online before peer review reach a journal, their central conclusions rarely change — and they are retracted less often, a large new analysis reports.
Environment
A Welsh 'Celtic rainforest' is whole again after nearly 60 years
RSPB Cymru has bought the 96-hectare Gallt-y-bere, the missing link between two halves of a nature reserve, opening a corridor for rare woodland wildlife.
Science
The quiet atomic trick that keeps gold from ever tarnishing
Physicists at Tulane University find that gold's surface atoms rearrange into a shape that all but blocks oxygen — explaining a shine that lasts for centuries.
Environment
Genes reveal Britain's swallowtail as an ancient survivor — and reshape its rescue
Whole-genome sequencing shows the Norfolk butterfly split from continental relatives far earlier than thought, strengthening the case to protect rather than replace it.
Technology
A cell's protein factory, reprogrammed into a decision-making switch
A South Korean team's RNA circuit lets a single cell weigh up to six molecular signals at once, edging synthetic biology toward 'living computers.'
Health
Faster endometriosis answers: NHS backs tests that work in days, not years
Two non-invasive tests cleared for the health service could spare women a diagnostic wait that now averages almost a decade.
Science
A rare fossil goose rewrites how New Zealand's birds evolved
Named Meterchen luti, an extinct goose from a Miocene lake bed turns out not to be the ancestor of New Zealand's giant geese, pointing to a more turbulent bird history.
Health
A homegrown catnip lotion matches DEET against malaria mosquitoes
In field trials in eastern Uganda, a cheap lotion made from the herb that delights cats repelled mosquitoes as well as the standard chemical DEET.
Health
The more languages you speak, the younger your brain may look
A study of 728 people in Spain's Basque region found that multilingual brains can appear up to 13 years younger than those of people who speak only one language.
Science
A single back bone reveals Thailand's first long-necked giant dinosaur
Uragasaurus kalasinensis, a 20-metre plant-eater from 150 million years ago, extends the range of China's famed long-necked dinosaurs into Southeast Asia.