This tantalising extract is taken from Bridge by Lauren Beukes, the latest pick for our New Scientist Book Club. It sees Bridge discovering something mysterious in her late mother's freezer - something which might open doors to other worlds | Continue reading
A new type of star may eventually collapse and become a magnetar – a highly magnetic neutron star, whose origins have been a cosmic mystery for decades | Continue reading
A series of catastrophic fires killed off many large mammals in southern California by 13,000 years ago, and they were largely due to the arrival of humans | Continue reading
Over the past few years, the white clouds that usually shroud Neptune’s surface have disappeared, and it may be because of changes in the sun’s activity over its 11-year cycle | Continue reading
When two black holes merge to form a single one, it can zoom off at an extraordinary pace – but scientists have found that it does have a speed limit | Continue reading
Fruit flies with access to a spinning carousel seem to ride on it for fun in a rare case of play-like behaviour in an invertebrate | Continue reading
The accuracy of pedestrian-detecting AI systems may be biased against some groups of people, fuelling calls for more transparency and tighter regulations | Continue reading
Wildfires in the northern hemisphere burn more fiercely when plants start growing earlier in the year, which they do because of the warming climate | Continue reading
When people are shown pictures evoking negative emotions, they remember time as passing more slowly, however, this is only true when the negative images are seen after a neutral one | Continue reading
An autonomous flying robot can float in place like a bird, using its throttle just 0.25 per cent of the time – which could make it useful for surveying a single spot for an extended period of time | Continue reading
The emergency contraceptive levonorgestrel is much more effective at preventing pregnancy if the anti-inflammatory drug piroxicam is taken at the same time | Continue reading
It has been 32 days since Maurice Miller, a dead man who is being kept on life support, received a genetically modified pig kidney, and it is still functioning with no signs of rejection or infection | Continue reading
We can change the flavour and texture of foods like bread and rice wine by tweaking the genomes of the yeasts that are used to make them | Continue reading
Delivering mRNAs to the cells lining the nose and lungs will make vaccines more effective and may also lead to better treatments for conditions such as cystic fibrosis | Continue reading
From marigolds to human babies, most complex organisms start as a single-celled embryo. In his new book, Ben Stanger explores what our humble origins could teach us about health and disease | Continue reading
Attributing extreme weather events to climate change, as I do through my work as a climatologist, means we can hold countries and companies to account for their inaction, says Friederike Otto | Continue reading
From avoiding the number seven to picking numbers over 31, mathematician Peter Rowlett has a few psychological strategies for improving your chances when playing the lottery | Continue reading
It can be difficult to know how worried we should be about the increasing effects of climate change, but embracing the new science of climate attribution and looking rationally at the progress we have made will help us take further action | Continue reading
As sport becomes more competitive and more corporate, using data to find that extra edge is vital, says Bruce Schoenfeld in his new book | Continue reading
Lauren Beukes's new science fiction novel, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, demonstrates the one crucial flaw in the entire multiverse fantasy: human nature | Continue reading
Seagrass is a crucial marine ecosystem that is being lost to climate change. Researchers in Germany are trying to help the meadows flourish again | Continue reading
The apparent equivalence of gravitational mass to inertial mass is a remarkable and beautiful feature of the cosmos, with a deep implication, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Continue reading
Clouds are made up of many tiny drops of liquid water suspended at temperatures below freezing, before they are penetrated by ice. Understanding this process better could help improve climate models | Continue reading
The genome of Ötzi, the 5300-year-old mummified man found in the Alps, was first published in 2012, but a more accurate readout has changed the story of where his ancestors came from | Continue reading
A technique for reprogramming adult cells that removes any trace of their origins could help produce stem cells at larger scales | Continue reading
Far from serene, the night sky is a riot of spectacular bangs and flashes that reveal the universe at its most extreme. Here, an astronomer explains the explosive physics behind them and what they tell us | Continue reading
With temperature records tumbling, it is only natural to worry about cascading tipping points, but the reality is far more nuanced | Continue reading
Extreme weather and temperatures made July 2023 a shocking month, with human-driven global warming, the El Niño climate pattern and even perhaps even a 2022 volcanic eruption contributing to the broken records | Continue reading
Both China and the US, the world's top carbon emitters, are racing ahead with solar panels and wind turbines. It is even looking like we may soon see the beginning of the end for fossil fuels | Continue reading
Focusing too much on extreme weather could trigger a backlash against climate action in the mid-2020s, when global temperature rises are set to slow down as the El Niño climate pattern fades | Continue reading
A lampshade coated in either a copper or iron substance removes indoor air pollutants released by cooking or from cleaning products | Continue reading
The documentary Panthera Britannia Declassified claims to show clear evidence of a black leopard or panther in the UK, but most experts remain sceptical | Continue reading
Blackbirds given an injection that mimics a bacterial infection remained active during the day, but rested earlier in the evenings for up to three weeks | Continue reading
AIs that work in multiple languages responded more accurately to questions when they were asked to translate them into English first | Continue reading
An artificial intelligence can guess what a song sounds like based on patterns of brain activity recorded while people were listening to it | Continue reading
Understand the surprising power of gesture and you could use it to boost your learning, improve your memory and influence others | Continue reading
When we detect gravitational waves, it’s because they are warping space and time by a tiny amount – but this episode of Dead Planets Society is about making one that is far more powerful | Continue reading
Low levels of oxygen on planets where alien life could potentially evolve may make developing technology impossible there because there would be no combustion | Continue reading
In the absence of tourists during lockdown, elephants at a wildlife park in South Africa showed much lower rates of behaviours thought to be a sign of anxiety | Continue reading
The sighting of a Cuvier’s beaked whale off the Spanish coast circling her dead calf, touching his head and lifting his body adds to growing evidence that cetaceans experience something similar to human grief | Continue reading
A robotic gripper can pick up items ranging from a drop of water to something thousands of times heavier than the gripper itself | Continue reading
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a court in Montana in the US sided with a group of young activists who said the state had violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” | Continue reading
EG.5, the latest omicron covid-19 subvariant that is being dubbed "Eris", may spread more easily than past versions of the virus and could evade immunity | Continue reading
Small trial in rhesus macaques shows a one-off gene therapy can cut alcohol consumption | Continue reading
Climate change means extreme heat will become the norm for millions across the world. We joined an experiment in the Saudi Arabian desert designed to find out what that means for our brains and bodies | Continue reading
A binary star system shines 20 per cent more brightly whenever the smaller star gets close to its giant partner, because of the immense waves that break on the larger star | Continue reading
Raised levels of certain proteins in the blood may indicate if someone is more likely to develop conditions such as cancer, heart disease or motor neurone disease in the next decade | Continue reading
The ozone hole over Antarctica may get close to its record size this year due to repercussions from the ferocious Tonga volcano eruption in 2022 | Continue reading