If there is, or ever has been, life on Mars, the chances are it would exist in caves protected from the severe dust storms, extreme temperatures, and high radiation present on its surface. One place to focus our attention could be eight possible cave sites (called skylights) recently discovered by Chenyu Ding at Shenzhen University in China, and colleagues.

Using a novel method, beams of laser light can be deflected using air alone. An invisible grating made only of air is not only immune to damage from the laser light, but it also preserves the original quality of the beam, reports an interdisciplinary research team in the journal Nature Photonics.

As weird as it might sound, black holes appear to be holograms.

Numbers like π, e and φ often turn up in unexpected places in science and mathematics. Pascal's triangle and the Fibonacci sequence also seem inexplicably widespread in nature. Then there's the Riemann zeta function, a deceptively straightforward function that has perplexed mathematicians since the 19th century.

The strongest part of a tree lies not in its trunk or its sprawling roots, but in the walls of its microscopic cells.

With the help of citizen scientists, a team of astronomers has discovered a unique black hole spewing a fiery jet at another galaxy. The black hole is hosted by a galaxy around one billion light years away from Earth named RAD12. The work was published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

Researchers have shown it is possible to perform artificial intelligence using tiny nanomagnets that interact like neurons in the brain. The new method, developed by a team led by Imperial College London researchers, could slash the energy cost of artificial intelligence (AI), which is currently doubling globally every 3.5 months.

A special form of light made using an ancient Namibian gemstone could be the key to new light-based quantum computers, which could solve long-held scientific mysteries, according to new research led by the University of St Andrews.