It may soon be possible to recreate the persona of someone who has died by training an artificial intelligence on their emails and texts - but is it a good idea? | Continue reading
Astronomers have spotted a gargantuan protocluster – the primordial beginnings of a galaxy cluster – by searching near a quasar in the early universe | Continue reading
Mathematics is at the heart of modern science but we shouldn’t forget other ways to reason, says author and researcher Roland Ennos | Continue reading
Last year, the world's oceans broke many warming records. Environment reporter James Dinneen went to the world's largest gathering of ocean scientists to find out how bad the situation is and what can be done about it | Continue reading
Adding alkaline chemicals to the huge volumes of wastewater discharged into the oceans each year could increase the amount of CO2 that gets sequestered, but the idea has been controversial | Continue reading
A device that measures minuscule gravitational forces could help us understand how gravity works on the quantum scale | Continue reading
Astronomers have found a new moon around Uranus and two orbiting Neptune – the first moons discovered orbiting these planets in a decade and the faintest ever spotted | Continue reading
Newly released emails have revealed that the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin was aware of concerns over the potential energy use and carbon emissions of the cryptocurrency, but felt there was no alternative | Continue reading
A mimic of Martian soil can be turned into strong fibres. Such a material could be used to help build a base or grow plants on the Red Planet | Continue reading
Four-legged robots typically need an arm to open doors or pick up objects, but this mechanical canid can carry out tasks with its front leg | Continue reading
Biochemist Casimir Funk realised that certain compounds in our diet are essential for keeping us healthy – but he wasn't the first to isolate a vitamin | Continue reading
Dune seems to have defeated most directors who dared try turning the epic novel into good cinema. How does Denis Villeneuve fare in the second half of his two-part take on Frank Herbert's book? | Continue reading
Martin MacInnes, the author of New Scientist's latest book club pick, the Booker prize-longlisted sci-fi novel In Ascension, on how he came to write it (and a bit of a spoiler) | Continue reading
In this tantalising extract from Martin MacInnes’s new science fiction novel, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, his protagonist Leigh has an epiphany while underwater | Continue reading
It may seem counterintuitive, but trophy hunting leads to a lot of land being protected instead of being used for agriculture or logging – which can ultimately benefit animals | Continue reading
Pigs that have been given genetically engineered immunity to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, a major and costly disease, could be on the market within two years | Continue reading
A study of around 9000 US adults has found that people are more in favour of removing toxic social media posts when they attack a member of the LGBTQ community than those targeting Christians or billionaires | Continue reading
Intuitive Machines has landed its Odysseus spacecraft on the moon, making it the first private company to achieve a feat previously only accomplished by national space agencies | Continue reading
We can already cool objects with fridges and with lasers. Now there is a third cooling technique involving special quantum states – and it could, in theory, allow us to reach the lowest temperatures yet | Continue reading
Pantetheine, which helps enzymes to work and is found in every organism, can be formed by simple reactions and may have played a role in the origins of life | Continue reading
Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed that a nearby supernova researchers have been watching since it exploded in 1987 left behind a hot neutron star | Continue reading
The warming avoided by planting CO2-absorbing forests could be around 15 to 30 per cent lower than previously estimated due to feedbacks such as dark trees reflecting less sunlight | Continue reading
The developer version of OpenAI’s leading large language model can be repurposed as an AI hacking agent, researchers have found. That could make it far easier for anyone to launch certain cyberattacks online | Continue reading
An artificial intelligence can interpret a mouse's brain activity to tell scientists where the animal is located and the direction it is looking | Continue reading
In a quantum engine, a single atom can emit radiation that bounces around a reflective cavity and creates enough pressure to push down a piston | Continue reading
About 80 per cent of people who received infliximab straight after diagnosis with the inflammatory bowel condition had controlled their symptoms after a year, compared with just 15 per cent of those following a standard regime | Continue reading
The relatives of men who produce very little or no sperm may be more likely to develop certain types of cancer than the general population | Continue reading
This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles | Continue reading
Since the 1970s, gardening wisdom has written off as useless the old practice of painting a tree’s pruning wounds. James Wong isn’t so sure | Continue reading
After the International Space Station is hit by a mystery object, astronaut Jo Ericsson must fix an escape module to get home – against the clock and shifting realities. The visuals are amazing but the science wonky, says Bethan Ackerley | Continue reading
Global warming means many of the world’s ancient rivers of ice will be gone within decades, threatening ecosystems that rely on their meltwater, a looming crisis that photographer Edward Burtynsky highlights in his work | Continue reading
In Charles Duhigg's new book, we discover why some people are great at getting others to alter entrenched views, where conversation fits in and how neuroscience underpins it all | Continue reading
In the fire hose of online media, politics is getting mixed up with fandom. This problem is at the root of the Taylor Swift conspiracy theory – and it could take us into much more dangerous waters, says Annalee Newitz | Continue reading
Feedback is astonished at the results of research into the mortality of tea and coffee-drinking Danes | Continue reading
The concern over factory-made fare, especially many plant-based meat substitutes, is often misplaced and lacking evidence, says biologist Jenny Chapman | Continue reading
As AI advances daily, a timely and wide-ranging book explores our past, present and future relationship with the technology that co-evolved with us | Continue reading
There are 86 billion neurons in your brain, roughly the same number as there are galaxies in the observable universe. Whether the mind is more complex than the cosmos, however, is up for debate | Continue reading
Death Valley may be the driest place in the US, but a large lake has now formed there because of severe rain | Continue reading
The distinctive melodies of baleen whales are produced by pushing air against a fatty cushion on one side of the larynx, and a sac lets them recycle air back into the lungs | Continue reading
With fresh insights into the communication between different brain networks in creative people, neuroscientists have shown how we can all produce more original ideas | Continue reading
We seem to generally remember where an object was located, despite forgetting its other details, a discovery that could change how we perceive eyewitness testimonies | Continue reading
The yellow-crested helmetshrike was considered lost after going unseen for nearly 20 years – now an expedition has rediscovered what appears to be a healthy population in central Africa | Continue reading
Thinking about consciousness from the perspective of a physicist may be key to figuring out whether it is a single phenomenon or a collection of discrete states | Continue reading
The Kikai-Akahoya eruption of an underwater volcano off the coast of Japan ejected enough material to fill Lake Tahoe twice, three times as much as the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 | Continue reading
In the hunt for an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, which can catch fire, researchers have developed an improved water-based power source | Continue reading
An appendage of the ovaries that had been dismissed as useless may actually help control ovulation and the menopause | Continue reading
Pet dogs of various breeds have been trained to detect smells related to Parkinson's disease, potentially offering a new approach to diagnosing the condition | Continue reading
AI-manipulated audio clips, images and videos have been used to harass people, scam money and influence elections, despite efforts to rein them in | Continue reading