Innehållsförteckning för January 2026 från BBC Science Focus Magazine

BLOOD MOON TOKYO, JAPAN From Cape Town to Canberra, stargazers were treated to a stunning sight on 7–8 September, as Earth's shadow fell across the Moon. Here, the ‘blood moon’ – the result of a total lunar eclipse – is peering out from behind Tokyo's 634m (2,080ft) Skytree broadcasting tower. Throughout history, blood moons have been regarded as bad omens. Only a couple of centuries ago, the Chinese Navy would have fired artillery upon seeing one, trying to scare off the dragons they believed were trying to swallow the Moon. Similarly, the Incas and Mayans feared that a jaguar was trying to devour the Moon. Today, we know that a lunar eclipse occurs when Earth passes directly between the Sun and Moon. This blocks the Sun's light from reaching the…

“They think it would have taken at least a thousand people carving out the bedrock for several years to construct the cosmogram” An ancient structure discovered in Mexico may reveal how early Maya civilisations understood the cosmos. In their study, archaeologists say that new findings indicate the 3,000-year-old site, known as Aguada Fénix, was a cosmogram: a geometric map of the Universe. After discovering one enormous cross-shaped pit (known as a cruciform) hidden under dense jungle overgrowth in 2020, archaeologists later realised it was only one of many nestled into each other and connected by canals. The total volume of these cruciforms is over 3.8 million cubic metres (1.3 billion cubic feet) – that's about one and a half Pyramids of Giza, or more than 1,500 Olympic swimming pools. Located…

The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet, a planet outside our Solar System, came in 1992. We've found a lot more in the years since then. According to NASA, by the end of October 2025, the tally stood at over 6,000. But as astounding as that number may sound, the big question isn't how many exoplanets there are (more than we could ever count); it's how many of them can - or do - support life. Answering that question is far from simple. Exoplanets float far away from us, at unfathomably vast distances. Even the closest, the super-Earth Proxima Centauri b, is more than four light-years away (over 37 trillion kilometres or 22 trillion miles). If life is out there, spotting it won't be easy. But scientists are coming up…

Young adults in Japan are having less and less sex, according to a recent review – and no one knows why. The review estimated that around half of Japanese people reach their mid-20s with no sexual experience at all, and approximately 10 per cent reach their 30s before having sex. Even those who have lost their virginity don't seem to be having much sex. Online surveys from the 2020s indicate that around half of Japanese adults aged 20–49 are sexually inactive, meaning they haven't had sex in the past year. In comparison, just over one in three Japanese adults aged 20–24 reported being sexually inexperienced in 2002, compared to 51–60 per cent by the 2020s. These are the conclusions of a review of Japanese sexual attitudes and behaviours, published in…

Thousands of man-made chemicals might be interfering with the genes of birds before they hatch, according to a recent study on ducklings. Scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) injected small amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into mallard duck eggs and then studied what happened to them. They found that the chemicals interfered with the ducklings’ DNA, switching genes on and off in several organs, and potentially damaging their chance of survival. PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals, are a group of man-made substances that take a very long time to break down in the environment. In this study, researchers tested the effects of three different forever chemicals. After injecting them into duck eggs, they sealed the eggs with wax and incubated them until they…

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says companies need more “masculine energy”; Donald Trump insists “manhood is under attack ”; and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth argues the Boy Scouts have drifted from their mission to “cultivate masculine values”, leaving “boy-friendly spaces” threatened. These are not fringe voices. They are the rich and powerful tapping into a zeitgeist that has gripped men, particularly younger ones, in recent years. According to a 2025 survey by Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London, Gen Z men and women (those born from around 1995 to 2010) are the most divided generation on the matter of gender equality. The research found that 60 per cent of Gen Z men believe they're expected to do too much to support equality, while…

You'd be forgiven for thinking that weight loss is a piece of cake – especially at this time of year when wellness influencers and fitness magazines are flexing their ‘easy-to-follow’ transformation programmes. Then there are supplement companies, slimming groups, personal trainers and biotech firms, all jostling for a slice of the big weight-loss pie. The industry is projected to be worth over £380bn ($500bn) less than a decade from now. But here's the thing that's rarely acknowledged: weight loss is tremendously difficult – especially for beginners. It's believed the majority of diets fail, often within weeks, and studies repeatedly show that people who do lose weight usually put it back on – and more – within a couple of years. In the UK, two-thirds of adults are overweight. In the…

JONATHAN SCHAEFER, WAKEFIELD WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES SOMEBODY COOL? Most of us have probably wanted to be cool at some point in our lives, and these efforts can have a big influence on the things we buy, the way we dress, the hobbies we invest in, the people we look up to and even the words we use. Being part of the in-crowd does have its perks. Studies have shown that cool people are more admired and are perceived as being more friendly, competent and attractive. But what exactly does it mean to be ‘cool’? The concept of coolness goes back centuries, with similar ideas found in traditional cultures such West Africa and China. In Europe, cool has its origins in the 16th-century Italian concept sprezzatura, which was an effortless, aristocratic…

For nearly a century, dark matter has remained an enigma. Despite it being around five times more abundant than normal (visible) matter, it can't be seen, touched or detected using any known techniques. But a new analysis of 15 years of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope claims to have picked up a signal indicating its presence. The analysis reports the detection of a mysterious halo-like glow of gamma rays around the Milky Way, which peak sharply at energies that closely match the kind of signal expected from a particular type of hypothetical dark matter particle. Such particles, known as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), could produce the gamma rays by colliding with each other in a process known as annihilation. It's not a detection of dark matter itself,…

Men might need to exercise twice as long as women to receive the same benefit, according to a major new study of 85,000 people. Researchers found that women who completed around four hours of moderate to vigorous exercise per week – such as brisk jogging, swimming or dancing – cut their risk of coronary heart disease by 30 per cent. Men, however, needed nearly nine hours of weekly activity to achieve the same reduction. “Compared with male individuals, females derive equivalent health benefits with only half the exercise time,” the researchers wrote in the study, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research. The team didn't investigate the reasons why there was such a marked difference, though they did suggest a few physiological causes. Women have higher levels of oestrogen, a hormone that's…

Air pollution is typically linked to respiratory conditions. But evidence is mounting that it could be associated with another equally concerning condition: dementia. A study published in September, in JAMA Neurology, is the latest to find that higher exposure to fine particulate matter may exacerbate the neurological changes associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. The study's authors emphasise that more research needs to be done to fully understand the connection, but the evidence for a link is mounting. A meta-analysis published in July 2025 by The Lancet Planetary Health examined data pertaining to 29 million people gathered between the late 1980s and early 1990s from multiple countries to investigate the impact of PM2.5 (fine particulate air pollution), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and soot on brain health. It found “dementia diagnosis to…

Anyone who's ever attempted a New Year reset will be familiar with the overwhelming feeling of trying to break well-worn habits and squeeze new activities - whether that's journalling, practising mindfulness, or trying to be more physically active - into a schedule already brimming with to-dos. Psychologists have noted that while social media has never been more saturated with programmes and courses on how to revamp your life and achieve greater happiness in the process, this rarely seems to result in long-term fulfilment. One recent study suggested that while big corporates have invested heavily in mindfulness apps, resilience training and other workplace wellness programmes in the past few years, these don't actually appear to result in happier or more contented employees. One of the reasons why such initiatives tend to…

In a time when people are being asked to consider eating insects, we should, perhaps, learn a thing or two from the aardvark (Orycteropus afer), Africa's ant-guzzling gourmand. On an average night, the big-schnozzed mammal devours up to 50,000 of the crunchy critters. Save for the occasional ‘aardvark cucumber’ – more on them later– aardvarks dine exclusively on ants and termites. And why not? Ants and termites have a collective biomass that's 10 times greater than that of all wild mammals – there's plenty of them around to eat, in other words. Aardvarks, who also go by the name of African ant bears, have a special knack for this. In search of a snack, aardvarks must first break into an ant nest or termite mound. Stocky leg bones, reinforced with…