The buried ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus seems to be stable across extremely long periods of time, making it an even more promising place to hunt for life | Continue reading
The effort of reproducing may divert energy away from repairing DNA or fighting illness, which could drive ageing, but a new study suggests that is only the case when environmental conditions are tough | Continue reading
A dwarf galaxy 100 million light years away is being stripped of its crucial star-forming gas, and it seems that the cosmic web is siphoning off this gas as the galaxy passes through | Continue reading
The surface of comet 3I/ATLAS may have been so radically altered by cosmic rays that deducing its home star system would be impossible | Continue reading
Jacob, an 11-year-old lion, has defied expectations by surviving for years after losing a leg – now we know his success is down to an innovative hunting strategy | Continue reading
Archaeologists have compiled the most detailed map yet of roads throughout the Roman Empire in AD 150, totalling almost 300,000 kilometres in length | Continue reading
Many plants including cocoa, coffee and avocado cannot be gene-edited but a technique involving grafting could change that, opening the door to more productive and nutritious varieties | Continue reading
The identity of a skeleton buried under a Budapest convent has been confirmed as Béla of Macsó, a Hungarian royal murdered in a 13th-century power struggle, and archaeologists have pieced together how the attack unfolded | Continue reading
It is widely accepted that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, but now researchers say our measurements of the mysterious force driving that may be wrong and that the universe began to slow 1.5 billion years ago – but other scientists disagree | Continue reading
Using the Helios-1 quantum computer, researchers have used a record-breaking number of error-proof qubits to run the first and biggest quantum simulation of a model for perfect conductivity | Continue reading
Lise Barnéoud's Hidden Guests shows how this fascinating new field brings with it profound implications for medicine, and even what it means to be human, finds Helen Thomson | Continue reading
Feedback discovers a robot that can mimic Turkish ice cream vendors, who are known for playing tricks on their customers. Researchers concluded that customers, perhaps predictably, don't trust it | Continue reading
Neurologically, the flexibility of the future promised by liberal democracy can be a challenge because it brings with it uncertainty. But there are solutions, say Florence Gaub and Liya Yu | Continue reading
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week | Continue reading
By cutting surveys of public health, the US government won't be able to properly tackle problems ranging from drug addiction to food insecurity | Continue reading
A planet is about to be destroyed by the collapse of a binary star system in Slow Gods, Claire North’s first venture into classic science fiction. Read it! says Emily H. Wilson | Continue reading
The battle to save the magnificent but endangered Amur tiger detailed in Jonathan Slaght's Tigers Between Empires is an inspiring look at what collaboration across borders can achieve, finds Adam Weymouth | Continue reading
A mathematical model suggests that when a pair of black holes gets quantum entangled, this can give rise to a lumpy space-time tunnel between them | Continue reading
Neuroscientist Matthew Sacchet is revealing how mastering meditation can not only enable transcendental states of bliss, but also reshape how we experience pain and emotion | Continue reading
Researchers warn that the alga Karenia cristata, which has killed around a million animals in Australian waters in one of the biggest algal blooms ever seen, could harm marine life elsewhere | Continue reading
Biochemical evidence suggests Norse people settled in Iceland almost 70 years before the accepted arrival date of the 870s, and didn't chop down the island's forests | Continue reading
Initiatives on the table at COP30 aim to evaluate which countries are most vulnerable, support efforts to clean up industries and pay for the protection of tropical forests | Continue reading
Getting covid-19 for the first time slightly increased the risk of heart inflammation, blood clots and bleeding disorders among children, whereas being vaccinated against the virus was much safer and sometimes protective | Continue reading
How do we know the speed of light – and why does it have a speed limit at all? Leah Crane explores the history of one of the most important numbers in the universe | Continue reading
In the largest genetic analysis of polycystic ovary syndrome to date, scientists have identified new variants linked to the condition, which could help us treat it more effectively | Continue reading
Recent outages have revealed how vulnerable the internet is, but there seems to be no official plan in the event of a catastrophic failure. Meet the team of hackers who are ready to jump into action | Continue reading
Expectations are low for the UN climate conference in Belém, Brazil, but the host’s pragmatic approach could help make progress on implementation | Continue reading
Building a working quantum internet would require overcoming a host of technical challenges, but researchers who have built one of the most advanced quantum networks to date say they think it is possible | Continue reading
A distant black hole has been caught releasing the brightest flare ever, which is the result of it ripping apart and devouring an enormous star | Continue reading
Enamel does not naturally regenerate, which can lead to painful cavities, but a gel that harnesses some of the properties of saliva could restore the hard, shiny layer to teeth | Continue reading
Alzheimer's-related cognitive decline could be slowed by taking as few as 3000 steps a day, possibly due to the effects of regular exercise on brain health | Continue reading
Hektoria glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula retreated 25 kilometres in just 15 months. Its rapid melt could have implications for other glaciers and the rate of sea level rise | Continue reading
Anthropologist Christopher Bae has recently suggested we add two new species of ancient human to our family tree. The plans break the conventions for how species should be named – but Bae argues the rules themselves are flawed | Continue reading
There are now over 10,000 satellites in orbit, more than at any point in history, and this growing number is starting to reveal how solar storms could disrupt internet mega constellations like SpaceX's Starlink | Continue reading
All over the world people are ageing more rapidly and succumbing to diseases that typically affected the elderly. But there are ways to turn back the clock on your biological age | Continue reading
The very first generation of stars, called Population III stars, are mostly expected to be too distant to see directly – but astronomers may have found some for the very first time | Continue reading
For the first time, video footage has captured orcas in the Gulf of California hunting young great white sharks, using a trick to flip them over, paralise them and get at their energy-rich livers | Continue reading
The uncertainty inherent to quantum mechanics has long left physicists wondering whether the observations we make on the quantum level reflect reality - a new test suggests they do | Continue reading
We now have only the second high-quality genome from an ancient Denisovan human, which reveals there were more populations of this species than we thought | Continue reading
A sheet of fabric that is three times stronger than Kevlar could stop a bullet despite being just 1.8 millimetres thick, thanks to the addition of carbon nanotubes that keep its molecules aligned | Continue reading
Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator | Continue reading
Rats given a faecal transplant from exuberant toddlers showed more exploratory behaviour, supporting the idea that gut bacteria might affect children’s emotional development | Continue reading
From Claire North’s new novel Slow Gods to a 10th anniversary edition of a brilliant Adrian Tchaikovsky book, there’s lots to watch out for in November’s science fiction | Continue reading
The New Scientist Book Club has various issues with Masud Husain's prize-winning popular science book about neurology | Continue reading
In this passage from the opening of Grace Chan’s sci-fi novel, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to her protagonists as they spend time in a virtual utopia which is becoming increasingly tempting in a dying world | Continue reading
Grace Chan, author of Every Version of You, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, explores the philosophical implications of the choices her characters make | Continue reading
The green mummified remains of a teenager buried in Italy 200 to 400 years ago have given us new insights into the preservative properties of copper | Continue reading
Interstellar objects like 3I/ATLAS are exciting, but there is no reason to claim that they are evidence of alien spacecraft – sometimes a comet is just comet, says Robin George Andrews | Continue reading