A fire at Vistra Energy's Moss Landing battery storage facility in California destroyed thousands of lithium batteries – and a significant amount of the state's clean energy storage capacity | Continue reading
A flying robot the size of a postage stamp can hover for up to 15 minutes without breaking, and it can perform acrobatic manoeuvres | Continue reading
Global average precipitation in 2024 may have broken the previous record set in 1998, as rising temperatures boosted the amount of moisture in the atmosphere | Continue reading
Now that the US Supreme Court has decided that a law banning TikTok is constitutional, the platform is set to shut down in the US on 19 January – but Trump could still save it | Continue reading
ELIZA is famous as a rudimentary artificial intelligence and the first ever chatbot, but versions found online today are actually knock-offs because the original computer code was lost – until now | Continue reading
Blue Origin and SpaceX both launched rockets on 16 January, but while Jeff Bezos' company saw a launch success with New Glenn, Elon Musk's Starship exploded. What does this mean for the future of the space industry? | Continue reading
The animals' teeth are constantly being worn down due to their tough diet. But rather than losing calcium this way, they could be recycling it to help grow their teeth back up to size | Continue reading
Trained pianists who hit a plateau improved their finger speed after a half-hour training session with a device that moves their fingers for them | Continue reading
Researchers saw a chain of atoms in a quantum simulator go from being magnetic to not magnetic at all, the first time such a change has ever been seen in one spatial dimension | Continue reading
The author of the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club on the science that lies behind his novel Alien Clay, set on a prison planet where the biology is very different to that on Earth | Continue reading
In the opening to Adrian Tchaikovsky's science fiction novel Alien Clay, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, our hero wakes from years of space travel to a terrifying new reality | Continue reading
Wildfires and fossil fuel burning in 2024 contributed to the biggest annual rise in atmospheric CO2 levels ever recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii | Continue reading
As apparent acts of sabotage cut undersea data cables around the world, NATO held its first demonstration of a project to quickly reroute crucial communications to satellite internet | Continue reading
By using MRI brain scans to identify regions linked to hand movements and sensations, researchers were able to restore a sense of touch to two people with paralysis – and one was able to control and feel a robot arm using his thoughts | Continue reading
Droughts lasting multiple years are becoming more common and extreme around the globe, expanding by about 50,000 square kilometres annually | Continue reading
A jawbone found in a Moroccan mine was thought to be a novel species of marine reptile from the Cretaceous period, but other researchers believe it is probably a fake | Continue reading
A reader is worried about socialising without the confidence boost she gets from alcohol. But studies show that the chemical isn’t necessary for easing our social inhibitions, our columnist David Robson advises | Continue reading
After delays and false starts, Jeff Bezos's firm Blue Origin has reached orbit with its first launch of the New Glenn rocket, though attempts to land the first stage at sea were unsuccessful | Continue reading
An AI trained on motion capture recordings can help robots smoothly imitate human actions, such as dancing, walking and throwing punches | Continue reading
Rebutting the serotonin theory of depression exposed an important gap in our knowledge. But Joanna Moncrieff's new book Chemically Imbalanced takes too narrow a view of how we should react | Continue reading
Neolithic people buried hundreds of stones carved with images of the sun about 4900 years ago and they may have done it because a volcanic eruption covered the sky | Continue reading
The shipping industry is planning to swap some fossil fuels for green ammonia – but that could create a major new source of nitrogen pollution | Continue reading
Most people don’t adhere to their New Year’s fitness resolutions. These science-backed tips can make you the exception | Continue reading
A series of events, from the California wildfires to evidence we passed 1.5 degrees last year, suggests wild weather will become even more common | Continue reading
This month marks a year since the malaria vaccine rollout began. Here's what we still need in order to beat a disease as old as ancient Egypt, says Azra Ghani | Continue reading
Feedback explores the upsides (and downsides) of Publish or Perish, a game that simulates the experience of building a career in scientific research | Continue reading
Our Future Chronicles column explores an imagined history of inventions and developments yet to come. In its latest instalment, Rowan Hooper reveals how by 2029, we had learned how to make synthetic spider silk, leading to a revolution in clothing | Continue reading
Neurologist Adam Zeman's excellent exploration of the power and complexity of our imaginations literally needs more space to house all its riches | Continue reading
From windswept craters to frigid ice caps, explore Martian landscapes through the eyes of NASA’s orbiters, probes and rovers | Continue reading
At his best, Iain M. Banks could be extraordinarily stylish, inventive and downright funny. So how does his genre-redefining science fiction stand up to the test of time? Emily H. Wilson rereads the greats | Continue reading
Genetic evidence from Iron Age Britain shows that women tended to stay within their ancestral communities, suggesting that social networks revolved around women | Continue reading
Scientists are scrambling to understand how climate change may be interfering with the winds that carry our weather, with potentially catastrophic consequences | Continue reading
The Chinese social media apps Red Note and Lemon8 have become popular alternatives for TikTok users ahead of a US government ban on TikTok. But government restrictions loom over those apps too | Continue reading
Middle-aged mice fed golden oyster mushrooms had healthier hearts, suggesting an antioxidant in the fungi protects against the effects of ageing | Continue reading
A newly discovered neutron star is behaving so strangely that it may alter our understanding of the dense remains left behind when stellar objects die | Continue reading
Obesity is typically assessed by measuring someone's body mass index, but now researchers are calling for a more nuanced approach that could help with treatment | Continue reading
From 2000 to 2022, the US legally imported almost 30,000 different species of plants and animals, from songbirds to reptiles | Continue reading
A huge number of ultracold atoms have been corralled into a grid that could form the basis of the next largest quantum computer | Continue reading
A range of brainwave-reading devices and other gadgets aim to monitor our nervous systems and intervene to improve our well-being. Do they work? | Continue reading
Two companies, Firefly Aerospace and ispace, are aiming to make the second and third successful private landings on the moon - and both are launching on the same Falcon 9 rocket | Continue reading
A marine crustacean that looks like Darth Vader’s helmet has been recognised as a new species, but it could be under threat from trawling due to its popularity in Vietnamese restaurants | Continue reading
Last year, Meta allowed thousands of paid ads containing sexually explicit imagery on social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram | Continue reading
Volcanoes have been proposed as the reason for the extinction of the Neanderthals and the hobbits of Indonesia, but the end of those species may not have come from a single, dramatic event | Continue reading
The tattoos of 1200-year-old mummies from Peru can now be seen in exquisite detail, showing fine markings that may have been made with cactus needles or animal bones | Continue reading
A new analysis of marsquakes measured by NASA’s InSight lander indicates Mars has a solid inner core – but other researchers say the evidence is thin | Continue reading
Suzie Imber is a co-investigator for the BepiColombo mission, currently on its way to Mercury. She explains how it will cast new light on the planet's many oddities, from its massive core to its epic solar storms | Continue reading
Suzie Imber is a co-investigator for the BepiColombo mission, currently on its way to Mercury. She explains how it will cast new light on the planet's many oddities, including its awful space weather and the fact it appears to have shrunk | Continue reading
Regular pulses of X-ray radiation emanating from a supermassive black hole could be explained by a white dwarf star on the verge of falling in | Continue reading