Ariel Waldman is standing all alone on a planet that looks a lot like Mars. At her feet are rock shards and barren soil. Overhead are jagged mountains streaked with dusty ice. The sky is a hazy white; the sun appears very far away. And then, Waldman smiles, explaining that she鈥檚 in Antarctica鈥檚 dry valleys, a vast stretch of deep-brown earth between frozen mountains and ancient glaciers. Maybe she鈥檚 not coming to you live from another planet, but in her new docuseries , she may convince you that Earth is more alien than you realised.

Now available on PBS, Waldman鈥檚 6-episode series is a journey into the microscopic jungle that lurks in our planet鈥檚 crust. Embedded with a soil-science team on Earth鈥檚 southernmost continent, Waldman brought her own microscopes, a macro probe lens that captures depth of field when shooting minute landscapes, a drone, and several complicated camera mounts to film the world鈥檚 most unsung wildlife in situ. She also filmed herself as she worked, creating a fascinating record of what it鈥檚 like to study an ecosystem that is undergoing a rapid, and sometimes violent, transformation due to climate change.

From the seemingly lifeless valleys of Antarctica to the bubbling wetlands of the North American prairies, she introduces us to animals including nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades, tiny creatures who shape and nourish our ecosystems while remaining invisible to the naked eye. Most impressive of all, she filmed her journey to Antarctica entirely on her own.

Sitting in her cozy office in San Francisco, surrounded by microscopes and cabinets full of photographic equipment, Waldman told me that a big part of her motivation is to chronicle environments in Antarctica and the prairies before they disappear. 鈥淚f you want to do a nature documentary in [the dry valleys] of Antarctica, you need microscopes to see the animals that exist there,鈥� she told me. The same goes for the prairies, where the vast majority of biomass lurks deep in the soggy ground.

As the official curator of the , Waldman also wants to normalise the idea that we should look at the dirt through microscopes as often as we peer through telescopes at the sky. That鈥檚 another reason she loves the microcosmos. 鈥淲hen we鈥檙e thinking about finding life on other planets or moons, our best guess is that we would find something microscopic.鈥� In Life Unearthed, she films tardigrades (also known as water bears) under the microscope, wiggling their puffy legs and booping into plant cells. These cute little guys can survive in the extreme cold of Antarctica and the sweltering prairies 鈥� and even the vacuum of space. They hint at the kinds of characters we might find beyond the safe envelope of our atmosphere.

I first met Waldman when she was working with NASA and running , an organisation that connects citizen scientists with space-exploration projects. She introduced me to CubeSat, a group of people into orbit. Later, she created , a global event I attended where scientists and enthusiasts can collaborate on everything from data gathering to software development. Since then, we鈥檝e become friends, and I鈥檝e followed her unique career that blends science, art and community organising.

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I visited her the day before she left for Antarctica, when her biggest worry was how she would get as much equipment as possible into her suitcases. Unlike the scientists she works with, Waldman鈥檚 deep academic background is in graphic design. She doesn鈥檛 merely want to research the planet, she wants to show it to people, to encourage them to get a cheap microscope and 鈥渏ust throw things under it鈥�. When people can see life in all its diversity, she believes, we become more confident about advocating for its conservation.

Influenced by the famous 1977 Eames short film , Waldman thinks that scale is a key way to understand our place in the universe. That鈥檚 why she needs drones for aerial views, as well as her beloved microscopes 鈥� and, when she鈥檚 chasing prairie crayfish in their underground burrows, she even uses a camera on a long wire that鈥檚 designed for snaking into clogged pipes. 鈥淗umans are both very small in the universe and very large in the universe, depending on your perspective,鈥� she mused. So much of life is 鈥渧irtually invisible to us without technology鈥�.

Waldman hopes that Life Unearthed inspires more people to pick up a microscope and check out all the invisible wildlife beneath their feet. To understand the true wonder of nature, we need to see it first.

The robot army that saves the world won鈥檛 be anything like what you imagine. Nope, they aren鈥檛 little humanoids who can do synchronised martial arts like the ones who dazzled audiences during . And they won鈥檛 help you find a can of Coke with embarrassing slowness like from Elon Musk鈥檚 Tesla Inc. Instead, they will be microscopic, and mostly made of algae, bacteria and other single-celled organisms. Engineers call them biohybrid microrobots.

If you鈥檝e read about people swallowing pills full of tiny robots to deliver medicine 鈥� or you watched the classic 80s flick Innerspace 鈥� you鈥檝e already experienced the dream of a microrobot future. For many years, medical researchers have imagined using little machines to get medicine into the hard-to-reach parts of our bodies such as the minuscule capillaries in our lungs. Even better, these machines could actually drive around in our organs, perhaps to seek and destroy cancer cells one by one. The problem is that we can鈥檛 actually build motorised devices small enough to do it.

That鈥檚 where biomedical engineer Joseph Wang鈥檚 work comes in. Like many in the growing field of microrobotics, Wang has dramatically expanded the definition of what most of us think of as 鈥渞obots鈥�. Any mechanism that can be controlled and move around semi-autonomously is a robot, much like the squishy, pneumatically powered turtle bot I described in a previous column. And some robots contain living tissues 鈥� or entire living creatures.

There are many things technology simply can鈥檛 do as well as biology 鈥� and one of them is motor around inside minuscule environments. Tiny synthetic engines tend to dissolve after a few minutes, Wang says, but 鈥渁lgae just swims and swims鈥�. That鈥檚 why he and his colleagues power their robots with the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

At the University of California, San Diego, Wang鈥檚 lab worked closely with chemical engineer Liangfang Zhang鈥檚 research group to create . They began with C. reinhardtii, which can swim with its powerful flagellum, or tail. It also happens to love blue light, so it is relatively simple to guide this single-celled critter by shining a blue light on its target region. Wang and Zhang can even get massive swarms of the algae into formation: by shining the blue light through a screen with a shape cut out of it, they herded thousands of algae cells into forming a circle, square and even more complex designs.

To disperse the swarm, the researchers used a red light. In a video demonstration, they show a swarm under the microscope moulding itself into the shape of the African continent and then scattering again. Essentially, Wang and Zhang created a microrobot army, 鈥減rogrammed鈥� to move in particular ways by blue and red lights.

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To turn this swarm into a microscopic medical team, they expose the algae to nanoparticles that stick to their outer membranes via electrostatic force. The result is half-algae, half-synthetic, all bot. Researchers can guide the fully loaded microbot swarm towards a wound using blue light. One day, doctors might use the masking technique to create custom-shaped algae bandages with many kinds of therapeutic payloads.

Other parts of the body call for a different kind of algae motor. For stomach exploration, Wang says, he and his team had to use where it had become used to acidic environments. That鈥檚 right 鈥� toxic mining sites produced algae that might one day swim to the rescue with drugs to treat your stomach cancer.

Light is just one way to program the bots. 女生小视频s can also 鈥� organisms that navigate via Earth鈥檚 magnetic field 鈥� then guide them around inside an animal鈥檚 body using electromagnets. Regardless of whether the payload rides on algae or bacteria, it鈥檚 referred to as 鈥渁ctive鈥� medicine. Traditional drugs are called 鈥減assive鈥� because they can鈥檛 be programmed to target specific regions or cell types. The hope with much of this research is that more medicine can become active, leading to more effective therapies, fewer side effects and less invasive treatments.

Medicine isn鈥檛 the only possible application for biohybrid microrobot swarms, either. Wang鈥檚 lab is also in rivers and oceans. Instead of loading the bots up with medicine, researchers cover them in chemicals that can neutralise or absorb toxins. The algae wriggle around in the water, often for days, collecting toxins opportunistically until everything is cleaned up. Meanwhile, some research groups are testing fully synthetic in the ocean.

The fantasy of a robot army doesn鈥檛 have to mean humanoid soldiers conquering enemies. Another future is always possible. Tiny algae-cyborg swarms could one day live inside your body 鈥� briefly 鈥� or travel in packs through the environment, decontaminating the messes that humanity made.

This month鈥檚 most exciting popular science books are surprisingly eclectic, and big on invention, ambition 鈥揳nd hubris. We鈥檙e tackling topics including the wonder (and envy) of flight, how to eat so the planet doesn鈥檛 collapse, the human capacity to build colossal structures and a drugs industry worth trillions, that er, doesn鈥檛 work as planned. Get stuck in 鈥� there鈥檚 plenty to amuse, delight and terrify.

by Simon Rogers

How do I get rid of hiccups? Why is grief so lonely? Should I have a third child?聽 How can I help a bee? In What We Ask Google: A surprisingly hopeful picture of humankind, Google data editor Simon Rogers shares some of the intimate, touching, momentous and downright human questions that we鈥檝e been asking Google for over two decades now. There is plenty of opportunity for embarrassed winces reading Rogers鈥檚 exploration of the billions of anonymous data searches: we share more than we know, it seems. Rogers is also a lecturer in data journalism at Medill-Northwestern University, San Francisco, and wrote the well-regarded Facts are Sacred in 2013. Oh, and economist Tim Harford (presenter of BBC Radio鈥檚 More or Less and an FT columnist) says, 鈥淭his view from the other side of the search box is both charming and insightful.鈥�

The best new popular science books of 2026

Clear out your shelves for a bumper new crop of books by authors including Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit and Xand Van Tulleken, says culture editor Alison Flood

by Courtney Conley and Milica McDowell

Hands up if you haven鈥檛 been pushing through the daily tyranny of notching up however many thousands of steps are in vogue that month. Well, you may change your mind after reading Walk: Your life depends on it by gait specialist Courtney Conley and physiotherapist Milica McDowell, which focuses on the multiple health benefits of walking and argues, say the publishers, that 鈥渋t is one of our most powerful and under-prescribed medicines鈥�. The applications of that medicine span everything from preventing/treating obesity and falls to mitigating lower back pain 鈥� so that would be most of us caught up in those preventable conditions at some time in our lives. And, as ancient societies (not to mention Romantic poets like Wordworth and Coleridge) knew all too well, thinking, creating and walking do indeed go well together. Sounds like a win.

by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

We鈥檙e looking forward to the wildest of political rides crashing into epic physics from New 女生小视频 columnist Chanda Prescod Weinstein in The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, poetry and the cosmic dream boogie. Her first book, The Disordered Cosmos, brought her many accolades, and this one is already off to a great start with praise from the likes of Ruha Benjamin, professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, who described it as a 鈥渓yrical exploration of the universe that dances at the intersection of physics, pop culture, and Black intellectual thought鈥�. Then there鈥檚 theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, who reckons it is a 鈥済reat read for any human being who lives in the universe鈥�. I can鈥檛 wait to get a finished copy and dig deep, not least to discover exactly what the section delivers with its tantalising title, 鈥淗ow to Live Safely in a Science Factual Universe鈥�, where Virginia Hamilton鈥檚 short story collection The People Could Fly fits in and why Chanda stayed up late thinking about metaphors in science.

by Vincent Doumeizel (translated by Charlotte Coombe)

Just how much better placed do you need to be to write about plankton? Vincent Doumeizel, author of The Power of Plankton: How plankton made life on Earth possible and why it鈥檚 key to our future, is senior adviser on oceans to the U.N. Global Compact, the world鈥檚 largest corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiative. Publisher The Book Social says his new book uncovers hidden connections between 鈥渢hese microscopic organisms and the survival of our planet鈥�, shares 鈥渦nforgettable鈥� stories about a scientist who survived 65 days crossing the Atlantic eating only plankton and reveals the truth behind ancient myths of 鈥渂lood rain鈥�, which apparently traces back to plankton blooms. New 女生小视频 readers will also remember his previous book, The Seaweed Revolution, which reviewer Chris Simms thought was excellent, as it made the case for the potential of seaweed to transform our world. So where does that leave plankton鈥檚 power, then? The clue is in the subtitle 鈥� as usual!

by Turi King

You may not know the name Turi King, but you will almost certainly have heard of her work: identifying the bones of Richard III in a car park in the UK city of Leicester and leading the project to sequence Adolf Hitler鈥檚 genome. So, we can definitely expect amazing stories in her new book, The Secrets of Our DNA: How genetics has changed the world. But underpinning those stories (think everything from O.J. Simpson to mistaken dinosaur DNA to Angelina Jolie鈥檚 BRCA1 gene) will be a deep account of how genetics has ended up entangled in the lives of us all. King 鈥渟hows how we are all interconnected and why we must all benefit from this exciting and rapidly evolving science鈥� and reminds us that DNA need not be destiny 鈥� nor is it the silver bullet some imagine.

by Helen Pilcher

Many of us 鈥� and that may well include some doctors 鈥� still have to get seriously acquainted with the nocebo effect, which can make us feel unwell or even experience pain. Science writer and former cell biologist Helen Pilcher is here to help, with her latest, This Book May Cause Side Effects: Why our minds are making us sick. Like placebo, the word nocebo has Latin roots, but while placebo is linked to someone鈥檚 positive expectations, nocebo is linked to negative expectations. In medicine, the placebo effect can mean that a patient expecting a particular treatment to have a good outcome gets that outcome 鈥� even when they receive an inert medicine or sugar pill. A nocebo is, sort of, the reverse. But it鈥檚 also a lot more complex than that, as we鈥檝e reported in New 女生小视频, so it will be fascinating to see what Pilcher makes of it 鈥� especially because of the possible implications of social media feeds for mass psychogenic illnesses, or even the controversial phenomenon known as 聽Havana syndrome.

The best new popular science books of April 2026

April has a lot to offer when it comes to popular science reading, promising to help us do everything from future-proof our brains courtesy of Hannah Critchlow, to get to grips with really big numbers, thanks to Richard Elwes

by Dr Nick Barber

You might well wonder whether Nick Barber decided he had to have the 鈥淒r鈥� in front of his name on this book to keep everyone on the right page here, given its title. How to Take Drugs: A new approach to medication for better results and fewer side effects looks likely to be the kind of book we should all have chained to our wrists, given the sheer amount of prescription medicines we are likely to consume in a lifetime. That, and the fact that adverse drug reactions are a huge burden on health care systems 鈥� with the percentage of hospital admissions due to adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescription medicines in the UK alone estimated to be as high as 6 to 7 per cent by some studies, to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Barber is emeritus professor of pharmacy at University College London and recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, so he should know a thing or two about the state of his sector, what the real ADR figures may be 鈥� and how to address all the factors involved.

by Dave Goulson

How to eat well without harming the planet is one of the world鈥檚 knottiest problems, so it is tempting to welcome any book promising to guide us through the multidimensional issues. But Eat the Planet Well: How to fix our toxic food system 鈥� one meal at a time is by Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex, who wrote well-received books like The Garden Jungle and A Sting in the Tale, not to mention more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects. His publishers say Goulson shows that changing our damaging ways is possible through supporting less-intensive farming, wasting less and rethinking what we eat 鈥� that our everyday choices really do matter. I鈥檒l definitely be reading this one.

by Simon Barnes

What child hasn鈥檛 wanted to fly like a bird? And many an adult still yearns to soar like an eagle. So, Simon Barnes鈥檚 How to Fly: Taking wing with birds, bats, insects and humans sounds like it鈥檚 going to be fun. Its publishers say it鈥檚 鈥渁 unique and all-encompassing exploration of the wonders of flight and the way different species have evolved different solutions to the problem of defying gravity 鈥� including humans鈥�, and it鈥檚 certainly stuffed full of facts. We meet bees that beat their wings 230 times per second, the extinct pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, with its 10-metre wingspan, and Arctic terns that travel 75,000 kilometres every year.

by Fred Mills

At 185 metres high and 2300 metres long, the Three Gorges Dam, spanning the Yangtze river in Hubei province, China, is the biggest dam in the world. Among other claims, the dam, says NASA, shifted Earth鈥檚 axis by about 2 centimetres and slightly shortened the planet鈥檚 day by approximately 0.06 microseconds. But that would come as no surprise to Fred Mills, the author of Mega Builds: Ten colossal construction projects that will change our world. Mills looks set to take us on a tour designed to convince us that modern engineering is a truly revolutionary force. As founder of The B1M YouTube channel, specialising in construction and with over 4 million subscribers, this should be a breeze for him, as he goes on a quest round the world to explore everything from a 鈥�170km-long smart city in Saudi Arabia, to Japan鈥檚 levitating railway鈥�.

The best new science documentaries of 2026

From Green Planet II to Tim Spector's What Not to Eat, there's plenty to look forward to from this year's science shows, says TV columnist Bethan Ackerley

by David Shukman

A 鈥渂listering and whistleblowing account of how Britain has joined the frontline of the world鈥檚 climate emergency, an expos茅 of how dangerously unprepared we are, and a vital roadmap towards a better future鈥�, say the hopeful publishers about The Response: A Story of Fire and Flood in Britain鈥檚 New World of Extremes by David Shukman. He鈥檚 a leading climate journalist and was a BBC climate correspondent for 20 years. This book sounds amazingly terrifying and has fans ranging from Tim Peake (鈥淲hile I saw the fragile beauty of our planet from space, David Shukman reveals how incredibly vulnerable we are on the ground鈥�) to the redoubtable climate negotiator and UN veteran Christiana Figueres (鈥淎 vital wake-up call for a world already on the frontlines. This is climate change stripped of rhetoric and abstraction, delivered at the painful ground level鈥�).

Social media giants Meta and YouTube have been found liable by a California jury for negligence that caused harm to a young woman鈥檚 mental health. The landmark decision is among the first of many similar cases, and could be the beginning of a trend that may force major changes in how social platforms work.

The companies have been ordered to pay $3 million in compensatory damages, which are meant to cover the plaintiff鈥檚 financial losses related to the events relevant to the case, as well as pain and suffering. The jury has not yet decided the amount of any punitive damages 鈥� money the companies would pay as punishment for their actions.

The claim held by the young woman at the centre of the trial, known in court documents as KGM, was that the addictive nature of these social media products led to her anxiety and depression, and the jury agreed. Originally, the lawsuit included Tiktok (owned by ByteDance) and Snapchat (owned by Snap) as well, but they settled out of court before the trial began.

This case was not unique: thousands of similar lawsuits have been filed against social media companies across the US alleging that their products are addictive and harmful. Most of the cases have not yet gone to trial, but one in New Mexico was decided on 24 March, with a similar outcome. In that case, the state alleged that Meta failed to protect children from exploitation on its platforms, and a jury found the company guilty. Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in damages.

The question now is whether cases like this will result in substantive changes to the social media products that have been ruled to be harmful. In the US, free speech laws have made it difficult to demand any changes to social media platforms 鈥� in particular, one called Section 230 that prevents companies from being held liable for content posted on their platforms by users. But those same laws have made it difficult to win lawsuits like these, so this may well be a turning point.

The New Mexico case is moving towards a second phase, in which a judge will decide what changes, if any, Meta will be required to make to its social media platforms going forward.

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A Meta spokeperson told New 女生小视频 that the company disagrees with the verdicts and intends to appeal in both cases. Jose Casta帽eda, a spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, stated that the company intends to appeal the California decision. Several more lawsuits are set to go to trial in the coming months, and if this trend continues, it could force sweeping changes to the social media landscape.