A US ban on exporting high-end chips used for AI development to China doesn't seem to have affected Tencent, as researchers have found signs of the tech giant using the chips well after the ban was put in place ⌘ Read more
A US ban on exporting high-end chips used for AI development to China doesn't seem to have affected Tencent, as researchers have found signs of the tech giant using the chips well after the ban was put in place ⌘ Read more
A robotic wheeled rat that was trained with AI learned how to play and fight with real rodents – and could one day offer companionship to lab rats ⌘ Read more
Women are more susceptible to autoimmune conditions than men, but also more protected against infections - and we are starting to understand why ⌘ Read more
In a unique demonstration of brain implants that incorporate living cells, the devices were able to connect with the brains of live mice ⌘ Read more
Alternative thinking on the evolution of species is a welcome way to highlight some neglected aspects of life on Earth, but it doesn't mean Darwin was wrong ⌘ Read more
An analysis of ancient cuneiform texts suggests people thought of emotions in a different way almost 3000 years ago, showing how culture influences our most intimate experiences ⌘ Read more
The latest weather forecasting AI model from Google DeepMind can beat the leading providers more than 97 per cent of the time, and it is quicker and cheaper to run ⌘ Read more
A bird-inspired robot called RAVEN can walk, hop and jump into flight, an ability that could help people develop fixed-wing drones that can take off and land anywhere ⌘ Read more
Natural selection isn't just something that happens to organisms, their activities also play a role, giving some species – including humans – a supercharged ability to evolve ⌘ Read more
Wildfires are already changing as a result of climate change but we don’t know what will happen as our planet gets even warmer. The answer could be hidden underground ⌘ Read more
There are slimmer sci-fi pickings than usual at the end of the year, but gems can still be found, whether that’s a visit to George R. R. Martin’s Wild Card universe, or a graphic novel adaptation of Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem ⌘ Read more
Parts from dozens of different individual comb jellies have been fused together to create strange new animals unlike anything seen before ⌘ Read more
From perfecting your hydration levels to tracking hormones, analysing your perspiration can give new insights into your fitness and how to improve it ⌘ Read more
From Alzheimer's disease to depression to heart disease, Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonist drugs appear to offer a solution. Can one type of drug really tackle so many conditions, and if so, how does it actually work? ⌘ Read more
Astronomers have spotted a 70-centimetre asteroid that is set to hit the atmosphere above northern Siberia at 4.15 pm GMT, making a fireball in the sky ⌘ Read more
Plate tectonics seems to be crucial for life on Earth, but we’ve never confirmed that it happens on other worlds - that may be about to change ⌘ Read more
EEG recordings used in neurology could be made simpler by replacing the usual electrodes, wires and gels with a tattoo printed onto the scalp ⌘ Read more
The last two years have seen unprecedented falls in the levels of sea ice around Antarctica, which serves as a protective wall for the continent's huge ice sheets. Researchers are now racing to understand the global impact of what could happen next ⌘ Read more
Robotic equipment can implant electrodes into cockroaches and connect them to an electronic backpack, making it feasible to mass-produce biorobots for search missions ⌘ Read more
The Acidalia Planitia region of the Red Planet might have all the requirements for methane-burping bacteria to exist beneath the surface ⌘ Read more
Tiny robots designed to carry out environmental or industrial tasks could be powered by tricks involving surface tension ⌘ Read more
Footprints preserved on the shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya seem to be from two ancient human species, showing they lived there at the same time about 1.5 million years ago ⌘ Read more
The content you see on social media is often determined by an algorithm - and it turns out that these algorithms can rapidly change your views ⌘ Read more
Determining when someone died based on their decomposing body is a subjective task, but artificial intelligence could bring some objectivity to the process ⌘ Read more
Feeling scared seems to reduce elevated levels of inflammation, which may help explain why some people enjoy a haunted attraction ⌘ Read more
Three people in North America without known animal exposures have tested positive for the bird flu virus H5N1, and samples from two of them suggest the virus is adapting to humans ⌘ Read more
Rising carbon dioxide levels are driving an increase in the ocean’s acidity – and this change is sinking deeper as emissions increase, putting even more marine organisms at risk ⌘ Read more
Near Space Labs’s autonomous balloon fleet is already taking high-resolution images of the ground, and its range will expand to the entire continental US early next year ⌘ Read more
Recent developments in AI and neurological research may prompt concern. However, placing outright bans on such research is unlikely to be the best solution - and may hold us back ⌘ Read more
Russia’s new ballistic missile flies on a high arc out of Earth’s atmosphere and releases multiple high-speed projectiles, making it challenging but not impossible to intercept ⌘ Read more
An analysis of hundreds of bromalites – fossilised faeces and vomit – shows how changes in diet enabled dinosaurs to take over the world in the early Jurassic ⌘ Read more
Physicists have long wondered why particles can only have an electric charge of +1, -2 or any whole number. Now we increasingly suspect that, actually, that's not true after all ⌘ Read more
Researchers have used lasers to encode information in diamonds, demonstrating record-breaking data density in an ultra-stable and long-lasting system ⌘ Read more
Food in the US has a bad rap thanks to outbreaks caused by bacteria, plus processing, additives and food dyes, but the food supply is actually much less risky than people think ⌘ Read more
Today's huge AI models are composed of several billion numbers known as weights and changing just one of them can destroy their ability to function, leading to “gibberish” output ⌘ Read more
Swapping classrooms for the woods doesn't appear to improve most children's mental health, but they may still enjoy it ⌘ Read more
Reperfusion technologies that can reanimate human brains are raising the possibility that death could be a reversible condition, even hours after a cardiac arrest ⌘ Read more
Space-time may not be continuous but instead made up of many discrete bits – and we may be able to see their effects near the edges of unusually bright black holes ⌘ Read more
With lithium in short supply, sodium-ion batteries might offer cheap energy storage with less environmental impact ⌘ Read more
Countries are meeting in South Korea this week to hash out the final details of a global treaty aimed at eliminating plastic pollution — here's what experts say it needs to include ⌘ Read more
Most people born before 1968 have antibodies against flu viruses similar to the H5N1 strain circulating today, which might lower their risk of severe illness ⌘ Read more
Most dogs aren't bred to feel at ease in our homes, but scientists studying puppy cognition have found ways you can help yours adapt ⌘ Read more
Projects to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by making the oceans less acidic are popping up all over the world – New Scientist visited one in New York City’s East river ⌘ Read more
Gene editing in the womb could be more effective than the same treatment after birth, as fetal cells are better able to take up the mRNAs coding for the necessary genetic machinery ⌘ Read more
Enigmatic phenomena called fast radio bursts might be caused by interstellar objects colliding with highly magnetised neutron stars ⌘ Read more
When deciding whether to let people await trial at home or in jail, US judges can use a risk score algorithm. But it often makes harsher recommendations than humans do ⌘ Read more
The unexpected discovery of microbial life in a piece of rock from an asteroid shows how hard it is to avoid contaminating samples brought back to Earth ⌘ Read more
New technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are growing in scale –though their effect on the climate remains negligible ⌘ Read more
Kazuo Ishiguro’s heartbreaking dystopian novel of young love and organ donation has been superbly adapted for the stage ⌘ Read more
Kelly Weinersmith, co-author of A City on Mars, the latest pick for our New Scientist Book Club, and Cat Bohannon lay out the reasons why it might not be such a great idea to be pregnant on another planet ⌘ Read more
There is no evidence that advertisers use covert recordings of conversations to target people with adverts, an accusation widely denied by the industry, and yet this belief persists ⌘ Read more
Creatine is commonly associated with athletes and bodybuilders, but the popular supplement seems to have broad benefits on everything from ageing to brain function ⌘ Read more
Chloramine is used as a disinfectant in drinking water systems from the US to Australia. Research now shows it breaks down into a compound that may have negative health impacts ⌘ Read more
Arthropods belong to an evolutionary branch – the ecdysozoa – that contains about half of all animal species, and the earliest fossil evidence of the group dates back 550 million years ⌘ Read more
Spaghetti strands that are 200 times thinner than a human hair could be woven into bandages to help prevent infections ⌘ Read more
Growing wood directly from stem cells could offer an alternative to cutting threatened hardwood trees, but it isn't clear if it has same properties as actual wood ⌘ Read more
Using four telescopes linked together, astronomers have captured an astonishing image of a huge star more than 160,000 light years away ⌘ Read more
Space-time may not be continuous but instead made up of many discrete bits – and we may be able to see their effects near the edges of unusually bright black holes ⌘ Read more
By 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in urban centres - that's just one reason why mayors will be essential to addressing the climate crisis, making vital adaptations to cities to make them more bearable in a warming world ⌘ Read more
Using GPT-4o, the model behind ChatGPT, researchers have replicated the personality and behaviour of more than 1000 people, in an effort to create an alternative to focus groups and polling ⌘ Read more
A large planet has been spotted orbiting a dwarf star that is just 3 million years old, offering possible clues to how the worlds in our solar system came into being ⌘ Read more
IBM has bet big on a modular approach to building quantum computers, and now it has successfully linked two quantum chips together to operate as a single device, a key step towards that goal ⌘ Read more
Quantum computers could get a boost from artificial intelligence, thanks to a model created by Google DeepMind that cleans up quantum errors ⌘ Read more
Unbearable heat in China’s megacities reveals the future many of us face, but also suggests ways we can adapt ⌘ Read more
Many restaurants in countries such as England and the US now print calories on their menus, but some researchers question whether this is really tackling their obesity problem ⌘ Read more
The best pictures we have of the sun yet have been delivered thanks to the Solar Orbiter spacecraft ⌘ Read more
The effects of being in space can worsen an astronaut's working memory, processing speed and attention - which could be a problem for future missions ⌘ Read more
Analysis of millions of galaxies upholds Albert Einstein’s ideas about gravity and also offers tantalising new hints of how dark energy may have evolved ⌘ Read more
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for the sixth test flight of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket. It aims to conduct the launch at 4pm Central Time (10pm UK). Here’s everything we know so far ⌘ Read more
The vast computational power of the El Capitan supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California will be used to support the US nuclear deterrent ⌘ Read more
Tiny, solid windows in the shells of heart cockles let in light for the photosynthetic algae inside them – and they could show us how to make better fibre-optic cables ⌘ Read more
A cataclysmic quantum fluctuation could wipe out everything at any moment. The fact that we’re still here is revealing hidden cosmic realities ⌘ Read more
Nearly 20 million people have joined Bluesky, a social network that gives you fine-grained control over what you see and who you interact with. I think it is the future of social media, says Chris Stokel-Walker ⌘ Read more
Several populations of Mexican tetra fish that live in darkness have independently evolved to need hardly any sleep, but the reason why is a mystery ⌘ Read more
Most mathematicians have been reluctant to start working with artificial intelligence, but a new tool developed by researchers at Meta may change that ⌘ Read more
A supercomputer simulation of iron and carbon atoms in Earth’s inner core may explain how a molten ball at the centre of our planet froze solid ⌘ Read more
The weird thermodynamics found in time crystals could be harnessed to store energy in a quantum battery-like device ⌘ Read more
Leading researchers warn that relying on "passive" carbon sinks such as forests to absorb ongoing carbon emissions will doom the world to continued warming ⌘ Read more
A study modelling the impact of melting ice suggests scientists have underestimated the risk that an important ocean current will shut down and cause climate chaos ⌘ Read more
The oral microbiome is increasingly being linked to head and neck cancer, but we don't yet understand its exact role ⌘ Read more
Attempts to prevent Australian children from accessing social media are likely to fail, and could do more harm than good ⌘ Read more
Letting AI models communicate with each other in their internal mathematical language, rather than translating back and forth to English, could accelerate their task-solving abilities ⌘ Read more
Governments and companies almost never take action when satellites alert them about large methane leaks coming from oil and gas infrastructure ⌘ Read more
Water levels in the Caspian Sea are set to fall dramatically as the climate gets hotter, posing a major threat to economic activity and ecosystems in the region ⌘ Read more
A genetic flaw dooms half of all crested newts to die before they hatch – now we know how this baffling evolutionary quirk came about ⌘ Read more
Two massive galaxies are bending light from the same distant quasar, creating a so-called Einstein zigzag lens that could help astronomers pin down how quickly the universe is expanding ⌘ Read more
It has been 50 years since archaeologists discovered Lucy, perhaps the most famous ancient hominin ever found. But the scientists who have studied her say that this fossil gave us a misleading image of the nature of her species ⌘ Read more
A classic study found that people can fail to notice a gorilla when they are focusing on something else, but new experiments suggest this "inattentional blindness" might not tell the whole story ⌘ Read more
Popular semaglutide-based drugs used for weight loss may reduce chronic and acute pain, which could make them a promising alternative to opioids ⌘ Read more
Satellite images reveal that when conditions are right, the pollution from industrial hotspots can cause snow to fall downwind and punch holes in clouds ⌘ Read more
The Proba-3 mission consists of two spacecraft that will fly in close formation to study the sun, with the shadow of one creating an artificial solar eclipse from the perspective of the other ⌘ Read more
Readers give higher ratings to AI-generated poetry than the works of poets such as William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson – perhaps because they often have more straightforward themes and simpler structure ⌘ Read more
With the help of a ruby cube and two laser beams, researchers made one ray of light cast a shadow when illuminated by the other ⌘ Read more
Driverless cars can now do doughnuts and drift like stunt drivers, skidding sideways around corners while maintaining control, which might help the cars recover from dangerous situations ⌘ Read more
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for the sixth test flight of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket. It aims to conduct the launch as early as 18 November. Here’s everything we know so far ⌘ Read more
The mega-coral measures 34 metres by 32 metres – making it larger than a blue whale – and it is thought to be three centuries old ⌘ Read more
Air pollution has been linked to eczema before, and now a study of more than 280,000 people has strengthened the association ⌘ Read more
Dozens of perforated pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel may be early examples of spindle whorls, a rotating tool used in textile making that was a step towards inventing the wheel ⌘ Read more
Food production is responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions. To get everyone the food they need in a warming world, governments worldwide must invest in securing our food systems ⌘ Read more
Rates of near-sightedness are rising all over the world. But solutions to the epidemic are coming into focus and could be simpler than you think ⌘ Read more