What shapes are made by a spinning needle? This seemingly innocent problem has puzzled mathematicians for decades, but now a new proof is being called the biggest result of the current century as it could help solve many other tricky problems ⌘ Read more
What shapes are made by a spinning needle? This seemingly innocent problem has puzzled mathematicians for decades, but now a new proof is being called the biggest result of the current century as it could help solve many other tricky problems ⌘ Read more
Researchers have criticised Microsoft's new Majorana 1 quantum computer, saying it has made claims about the way it works that aren't fully backed up by scientific evidence ⌘ Read more
Researchers and other advocates for science gathered at Stand Up for Science rallies around the US and the world to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific research ⌘ Read more
Widespread firings at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could affect everything from tornado alerts to weather forecasts on your phone ⌘ Read more
Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy could raise the risk of a rare form of vision loss, but we are still trying to unpick why ⌘ Read more
Spending more time at school could keep you sharp into old age, but there are other factors that might explain the effect ⌘ Read more
A star has been spotted shooting away from the heart of our galaxy at around 500 kilometres per second, giving astronomers clues about a group of stellar objects that are hard to observe directly ⌘ Read more
How sexual reproduction came about has long been a mystery, but an evolutionary model suggests it could have started with cells fusing to increase their food reserves ⌘ Read more
Mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus could become a growing concern in the UK and other northern European nations as the climate warms, with a virus affecting blackbirds showing how these pathogens can take hold ⌘ Read more
Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft has landed on the surface of the moon, but it seems to have fallen over and we do not yet know if it will be able to drill for ice ⌘ Read more
The US Department of Agriculture announced it will allocate $100 million to develop vaccines and other therapies to help contain the spread of bird flu on poultry and dairy farms ⌘ Read more
Coots' nests in Amsterdam are built using discarded plastic, providing a time capsule into the material's use over the past few decades ⌘ Read more
In a record-breaking test, researchers remotely detected radioactive material by shooting it with infrared laser pulses and analysing how the light scattered ⌘ Read more
A supermassive black hole that doesn't appear to be where we would expect seems to be travelling at more than a thousand kilometres per second – the result of a giant cosmic collision ⌘ Read more
It is impossible for us to know exactly how another person's experience of the world compares to our own, but a new experiment is helping to reveal that colour is indeed a shared phenomenon ⌘ Read more
Sea ice cover in both the Antarctic and Arctic remained far below average throughout February as global average temperatures linger near record highs ⌘ Read more
Most people recover from norovirus, a highly contagious infection, within a few days but it can be particularly risky for some groups. Now a small trial of a pill designed to protect against the virus has shown promise in older people ⌘ Read more
Supersolids are strange materials that behave like both a solid and a fluid due to quantum effects – and now researchers have created an intriguing new type of supersolid from laser light ⌘ Read more
Hominins may have learned how to make bone tools by adapting the techniques they mastered for stone ones ⌘ Read more
Software used by banks and the space industry may still rely on archaic code. We went in search of the oldest code in use and asked, what happens when it glitches? ⌘ Read more
The Turing award, often considered the Nobel prize of computing, has gone to two computer scientists for their work on reinforcement learning, a key technique in training artificial intelligence models ⌘ Read more
When competition for food is high, both chimps and bonobos sometimes rub their genitals together to cope ⌘ Read more
The Trump administration’s latest move to improve government efficiency has purged tech consultants that worked to improve government efficiency ⌘ Read more
Water is an essential part of life on Earth, and possibly elsewhere – and now it we know it may have formed not long after the start of the universe ⌘ Read more
A strange new conception of how time warps across the universe does away with cosmology's most mysterious entity, dark energy ⌘ Read more
We are starting to understand how Greenland sharks can live for centuries without commonly developing tumours ⌘ Read more
Colossal Biosciences has altered several genes in mice to make them look more mammoth-like, but the company is far from its goal of fully resurrecting woolly mammoths by 2028 ⌘ Read more
Soil fungi can make a compound that disrupts how cow stomachs produce the potent greenhouse gas methane ⌘ Read more
Encryption would normally be expected to slow down computation, but applying the tools of cryptography to "trick" an algorithm can actually make it work faster ⌘ Read more
DARPA scientists are exploring ways to grow massive biological objects, such as telescope antennas or huge nets to snag debris, in space ⌘ Read more
Colorectal cancers will soon be the number one cause of cancer death among people under 50. Could changes in lifestyle and environment be to blame? ⌘ Read more
John Scalzi, Silvia Park and Ai Jang all have new books out this month. Whether it’s time travel or a moon made of cheese that takes your fancy, there’s some sci-fi here for you ⌘ Read more
The DNA of Yersinia pestis bacteria has been found in a Bronze Age sheep, offering a clue to how the plague may have spread through prehistoric farming communities ⌘ Read more
Consuming dairy is increasingly being linked to a lower risk of colorectal cancer, but the true relationship between the two is hard to untangle ⌘ Read more
The second-ever commercial landing on the moon comes amid a flurry of lunar exploration activity that will see around a dozen missions this year alone ⌘ Read more
When the US Federal Emergency Management Agency removed a map of future climate hazards from its website, researchers built their own version ⌘ Read more
Choreographer Wayne McGregor’s extraordinary new show, Deepstaria, is inspired by the marine life of the deep ocean ⌘ Read more
Golden-bellied capuchins are usually found in humid forests, but some populations appear to have adapted to life in drier habitats with the help of stone tools ⌘ Read more
Time and memory space are the two main constraints on what we can compute, and understanding their relationship is a key part of computational complexity research ⌘ Read more
NASA's newest space telescope will scan the entire sky in a range of near-infrared wavelengths to help astronomers better understand the evolution of the universe and search for promising spots for extraterrestrial life ⌘ Read more
In this passage from Dengue Boy, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, we get an insight into life for Michel Nieva’s mosquito protagonist – and the drowned future world she inhabits ⌘ Read more
Michel Nieva, the author of the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, Dengue Boy, on his story of a drowned, pandemic-struck future Earth – and his unusual protagonist ⌘ Read more
Changes in Earth’s orbit drive long-term glacial cycles, but a new forecast suggests this ancient pattern is being disrupted for tens of thousands of years due to human-induced global warming ⌘ Read more
Blue Zones, places home to an unusual number of centenarians, are looked to for their secrets to living healthier lives – but are they even real? ⌘ Read more
There may be logic in keeping spacecraft as sterile as possible, but this could inadvertently be affecting astronauts' health ⌘ Read more
A cloud of super-heated volcanic ash and gas exploded the brain of one Herculaneum resident and the fragments inside his skull became an extremely rare organic glass ⌘ Read more
For a few evenings around 28 February, every planet in the solar system will be visible in the night sky, thanks to a rare great planetary alignment. Here's how to make sure you don't miss this planetary parade. ⌘ Read more
While experimenting with waves, researchers discovered that vibrating a container of liquid would cause bubble to "gallop" across its surface ⌘ Read more
Spending more days in extreme heat seems to be linked to markers of increased biological ageing in people aged 56 and over, suggesting that it could raise the risk of age-related diseases ⌘ Read more
When faced with real-life controversy over the thorniest of research topics, we can seek guidance from fiction ⌘ Read more
The electrons in a twisted piece of graphene show a strange repeating pattern first predicted in 1976, but never directly measured until now ⌘ Read more
Wearable technology could go beyond smartwatches to items of clothing that monitor large parts of your body ⌘ Read more
By far the oldest evidence of humans living in dense forests comes from a site in Ivory Coast, where stone tools and plant remains reveal a human presence stretching back 150,000 years ⌘ Read more
Climate models predict that even under extreme warming, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation will weaken but not collapse entirely – although this could still have serious impacts ⌘ Read more
Should that meeting have been an email? Is it ever ok to send a voice note? Andrew Brodsky has studied the communication habits of 100,000 people and has the answers ⌘ Read more
People in industrialised societies seem to sleep for longer than those in non-industrialised ones, but their circadian rhythms are more out of sync ⌘ Read more
The frozen remains of animals like mammoths, wolves and cave lions offer the most detailed picture yet of the last glacial period ⌘ Read more
Grey squirrels can actually come in black morphs, which are doing well in one US city because they're less likely to become roadkill ⌘ Read more
Varda, a US firm planning to manufacture pharmaceuticals in low Earth orbit, is expecting its second test capsule to return to Earth this week ⌘ Read more
Around the world, the earliest buildings are typically round while later ones are rectangular – but 12,000-year-old buildings with corners don’t fit the pattern ⌘ Read more
Preserved wooden spears from hundreds of thousands of years ago seem to have been suitable for throwing, not just close-range attacks ⌘ Read more
The site of a deep-sea mining test in 1979 had lower levels of biodiversity when researchers revisited it in 2023 compared with undisturbed areas nearby ⌘ Read more
Type-1 diabetes, IBD, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, coeliac disease and lupus are all caused by the body attacking itself. But new therapies that reset the immune system could offer lasting help ⌘ Read more
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is about to launch a number of missions, including a private lunar lander, a lunar satellite for NASA and a prospecting probe for an asteroid mining company ⌘ Read more
NASA's Juno spacecraft swooped in for a close look at a massive thunderstorm on Jupiter, revealing that it may have similarities to storms on Earth ⌘ Read more
When offered a choice of bowls, free-ranging dogs in India tend to approach a yellow one much more than blue or grey ⌘ Read more
Hair conditioner made using lignin, a polymer found in wood and bark, works just as well as a commercial product - as long as you don't mind the smell ⌘ Read more
Rock dust, compost and biochar can all help capture carbon dioxide and boost crop yields when spread on soil – but researchers are discovering they may be even more effective when used in combination ⌘ Read more
The US withdrawal from the World Health Organization formally takes one year, but the country has already stopped sharing influenza surveillance with the international body, which could impact the efficacy of the next flu vaccine ⌘ Read more
Tasmanian devils are already being released inside predator-proof sanctuaries in New South Wales, and rewilding advocates believe they could suppress feral cats and foxes across the continent ⌘ Read more
A new AI-based method can accurately recover digital data from DNA strands nearly 90 times faster than older techniques, raising the possibility of practical DNA storage for computing ⌘ Read more
In a monthly reporting call on global climate, researchers from the US government’s climate and weather agency avoided mentioning rising levels of greenhouse gases ⌘ Read more
Young mice seemingly attempt to revive an anaesthetised cage mate by grooming and biting it and will even pull aside the tongue to clear its airway ⌘ Read more
Grave warnings have been issued about the dangers of creating lifeforms using mirror-image molecules. How worried should we be? ⌘ Read more
Questioning a chatbot that has been trained on bestselling books from a particular decade can give researchers a measure of the social biases of that era ⌘ Read more
A red supergiant star appears to have changed in just a few years – an astronomical blink of an eye – which suggests it may be getting ready to explode in a supernova ⌘ Read more
Multiple studies suggest that speaking more than one language pushes back the onset of dementia, but doesn't seem to stop it entirely ⌘ Read more
The Trump administration’s pause on US foreign assistance could lead to an estimated 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and more than 8300 pregnancy-related deaths ⌘ Read more
Nobody doubts that human activities have dramatically transformed Earth, so why has there been no official recognition of the Anthropocene? ⌘ Read more
Researchers who have been given access to Google's new AI "co-scientist" tool are enthusiastic about its potential, but it isn't yet clear whether it can make truly novel discoveries ⌘ Read more
Today, the upheavals of plate tectonics continually reshape Earth. When this began is much disputed - and we can’t fully understand how life began to thrive on our planet until we figure it out ⌘ Read more
Pigmented algae are well adapted to grow on exposed ice in the Arctic as the snowline recedes, raising concerns of a feedback loop that could lead to faster sea-level rise ⌘ Read more
The largest study of its kind has revealed how both genetics and lifestyle play a role in developing certain age-related conditions, such as dementia, lung cancer and heart disease ⌘ Read more
The weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation could be bolstering rainfall over the Amazon, reducing the risk it will reach a tipping point ⌘ Read more
The often stereotyped and offensive responses from AI chatbots role-playing as humans can be explained by flaws in how large language models attempt to portray demographic identities ⌘ Read more
The gas giant WASP 121b, also known as Tylos, has an atmospheric structure unlike any we have ever seen, and the fastest winds on any planet ⌘ Read more
By looking ever further back in time, the James Webb Space Telescope is at last revealing the first galaxies – and a very strange young cosmos ⌘ Read more
The more we discover about our species' family tree, the harder it becomes to pinpoint when exactly Homo sapiens emerged, raising questions over what it really means to be human ⌘ Read more
Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a small chance of hitting Earth in 2032, but as astronomers make more observations of its trajectory, the odds of a collision seem to be increasing ⌘ Read more
Some cyanobacteria have pigments that specialise in harvesting green light to power their photosynthesis, which may be an evolutionary adaptation to a time when the oceans were iron-rich and green-tinged ⌘ Read more
Artificial intelligences fail to identify optical illusions in images created by other AIs – so these images could form the basis of a new kind of CAPTCHA test ⌘ Read more
A person with neuroblastoma, which occurs when developing nerve cells in children turn cancerous, has remained tumour-free for over 18 years thanks to CAR T-cell therapy ⌘ Read more
Social media is enabling health symptoms and mass psychogenic illnesses to spread quickly around the world. But by knowing how it happens, you can protect yourself ⌘ Read more
From staying active to getting plenty of sleep, there are many ways to keep your heart healthy ⌘ Read more
Pompeii only came under Roman control around 160 years before its destruction – and its traffic-worn streets show how the locals adjusted their business operations ⌘ Read more
Throughout Earth's history, ice caps have been very rare, but a model of the past 420 million years suggests an explanation for why they sometimes form ⌘ Read more
Crops don't generally thrive in desert-like ground, but 1000 years ago farmers in Israel utilised refuse such as ash and bones to turn sand into fertile land ⌘ Read more
A new look at fossils from the Cambrian Period around 500 million years ago has revealed that some of the earliest animals spent time on mudflats that were sometimes exposed to the air – a find that could rewrite the story of when life first left the oceans ⌘ Read more
For more than 40 years, Jonathan McDowell has tirelessly catalogued the space industry. Now he is planning to retire, and looking to pass on his extensive collection of knowledge ⌘ Read more
A UK start-up is producing dyes made by bacteria and yeast rather than fossil fuel-derived chemicals, which could help clothes manufacturers cut energy use and pollution ⌘ Read more