Countries are cheating their way to net zero by overrelying on forests

Leading researchers warn that relying on "passive" carbon sinks such as forests to absorb ongoing carbon emissions will doom the world to continued warming | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 6 days ago

Vital Atlantic Ocean current is already weakening due to melting ice

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 6 days ago

Evidence is growing that microbes in your mouth contribute to cancer

The oral microbiome is increasingly being linked to head and neck cancer, but we don't yet understand its exact role | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 6 days ago

Australia wants to ban social media for under-16s, but it won't work

Attempts to prevent Australian children from accessing social media are likely to fail, and could do more harm than good | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 8 days ago

AI models work together faster when they speak their own language

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

Satellites spot methane leaks – but ‘super-emitters’ don’t fix them

Governments and companies almost never take action when satellites alert them about large methane leaks coming from oil and gas infrastructure | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

COP29 host Azerbaijan faces climate disaster as Caspian Sea dries up

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

A 200-year-old mystery about newts has finally been solved

A genetic flaw dooms half of all crested newts to die before they hatch – now we know how this baffling evolutionary quirk came about | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

A unique pair of galactic lenses may help solve a cosmological riddle

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

How we misunderstood what the Lucy fossil reveals about ancient humans

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

There's a new twist on the famous invisible gorilla psychology study

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

Weight-loss medications may also ease chronic pain

Popular semaglutide-based drugs used for weight loss may reduce chronic and acute pain, which could make them a promising alternative to opioids | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 9 days ago

Plumes of pollution from big factories can make it snow

Satellite images reveal that when conditions are right, the pollution from industrial hotspots can cause snow to fall downwind and punch holes in clouds | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

Twin spacecraft will launch to create an artificial solar eclipse

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

People prefer AI-generated poems to Shakespeare and Dickinson

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

Bizarre test shows light can actually cast its own shadow

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

Watch autonomous cars do doughnuts and drift sideways round corners

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

Starship launch flight 6: When is Elon Musk’s SpaceX flight test?

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

World’s largest coral is 300 years old and was discovered by accident

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 10 days ago

Mounting evidence points to air pollution as a cause of eczema

Air pollution has been linked to eczema before, and now a study of more than 280,000 people has strengthened the association | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

12,000-year-old stones may be oldest example of wheel-like tools

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

We must use genetic technologies now to avert the coming food crisis

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

A personal investigation into the crisis of men's mental health

The issue of men's dangerously bottled-up emotions finds a fresh and personal voice in Silent Men, a documentary that is at its most powerful when director Duncan Cowles turns the camera on others | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Does this high-tech lettuce hold the answer to the global food crisis?

Photographer Kadir van Lohuizen captures the food industry's attempts to meet the challenges of climate change and conflicts in his new book, Food for Thought | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

To truly understand non-human grief, we need to think like the animals

Evidence that animals mourn the death of loved ones is growing, but we should be wary of letting our biases cloud this topic, says philosopher Susana Monsó | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

How to take a quantum approach to finding love

Feedback was delighted to learn of the appearance of quantum physicist Garrett Josemans on Netflix's Love is Blind. After all, being comfortable with two opposing realities can surely help in a relationship | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

You can't put a price on the sense of awe particle physics inspires

Astronomy and particle physics are no longer seen as vital by the US establishment, so funding has fallen. But our work creates a sense of wonder, and wonder matters, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Major US art event explores the bonds between art and science

More than 70 exhibitions across Southern California are taking on the relationship between art and science, with compelling results | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

The dilemma of mining more metals so we can ditch fossil fuels

In his new book, Power Metal, journalist Vince Beiser provides a balanced briefing on the race for the resources that will shape our technological future | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

How I learned to love looking at the moon – and you can too

The moon's glare can frustrate astronomers, but Leah Crane is a big fan of the jagged, cratered details of the lunar surface these days | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Why we now think the myopia epidemic can be slowed – or even reversed

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 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Sweeter tomatoes are coming soon thanks to CRISPR gene editing

Selection for bigger tomatoes has made the fruits less sweet, but now it has been shown that gene editing can make them sweeter without decreasing yields | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Millions of phones create most complete map ever of the ionosphere

Researchers mapped Earth’s ionosphere, part of the upper atmosphere, using signal data from 40 million phones – a method that could improve GPS accuracy and help track space weather | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Exquisite bird fossil provides clues to the evolution of avian brains

Palaeontologists have pieced together the brain structure of a bird that lived 80 million years ago named Navaornis hestiae, thanks to a remarkably well-preserved fossil | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Drought, fires and fossil fuels push CO2 emissions to a record high

An annual accounting of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and land use change finds no sign emissions will peak this year | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Migratory birds can use Earth's magnetic field like a GPS

Eurasian reed warblers don’t just get a sense of direction from Earth’s magnetic field – they can also calculate their coordinates on a mental map | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Orbital wins the Booker prize: “I see it as a kind of space pastoral"

Samantha Harvey has won the UK's top fiction prize for a novel that takes place over 24 hours on the International Space Station | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Google Street View helps map how 600,000 trees grow down to the limb

AI and Google Street View have created 'digital twins' of living trees in North American cities – part of a huge simulation that could help make urban tree planting and trimming decisions | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 11 days ago

Jets of liquid bounce off hot surfaces without ever touching them

Droplets of fluid have been known to hover above a hot surface, but a new experiment suggests the same can happen to tiny jets of liquid too | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 12 days ago

Next Mauna Loa eruption could be forecast months in advance

An analysis of crystals in lava from the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa has revealed an unknown magma reservoir within the volcano, which could extend forecasts of eruptions from minutes to months | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 12 days ago

A new life on Mars? Expect toxic dust, bad vibes and insects for lunch

You might have heard about plans to establish a self‑sustaining city on Mars. Here’s what life would really be like on the Red Planet | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 12 days ago

This robot can build anything you ask for out of blocks

An AI-assisted robot can listen to spoken commands and assemble 3D objects such as chairs and tables out of reusable building blocks | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 12 days ago

SpaceX targets Starship flight next week – just a month after last one

SpaceX is preparing for the sixth test flight of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket. Next week's launch – if successful – will be the fastest turnaround yet | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 12 days ago

Red kites and buzzards are being killed by misuse of rat poisons

Campaigners are calling for stricter controls on rodenticides after finding that birds of prey in England are increasingly being exposed to high doses of rat poison | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 12 days ago

How a single gopher restored a landscape devastated by a volcano

Never underestimate what a single gopher can achieve in a day: one of the burrowing mammals helped boost soil fungi in an area blanketed by ash from the explosive eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington state | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 13 days ago

Humanity has warmed the planet by 1.5°C since 1700

Most assessments of global warming use 1850-1900 as a baseline, but researchers have now established a new pre-industrial reference by using Antarctic ice cores to estimate the average temperature before 1700 | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 13 days ago

Lights on surfboards and wetsuits could deter shark attacks

Experiments show that illuminating the underside of a decoy seal reduces attacks by great white sharks, revealing a possible strategy to protect surfers and swimmers | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 13 days ago

Our only visit to Uranus came at an unusual time for the planet

Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, giving us our only up-close look at the planet – but unusual space weather just before the craft arrived has given us a misleading idea about the planet’s magnetic field | Continue reading


@newscientist.com | 13 days ago