Risk algorithm used widely in US courts is harsher than human judges
When deciding whether to let people await trial at home or in jail, US judges can use a risk score algorithm. But it often makes harsher recommendations than humans do ⌘ Read more

Bacteria found in asteroid sample – but they’re not from space
The unexpected discovery of microbial life in a piece of rock from an asteroid shows how hard it is to avoid contaminating samples brought back to Earth ⌘ Read more

Crushed rocks outpace giant fans in race to remove CO2 from air
New technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are growing in scale –though their effect on the climate remains negligible ⌘ Read more

Stunning Never Let Me Go stage version asks the big questions
Kazuo Ishiguro’s heartbreaking dystopian novel of young love and organ donation has been superbly adapted for the stage ⌘ Read more

Having a baby on Mars? You may be in for a difficult time
Kelly Weinersmith, co-author of A City on Mars, the latest pick for our New Scientist Book Club, and Cat Bohannon lay out the reasons why it might not be such a great idea to be pregnant on another planet ⌘ Read more

Majority of people believe their devices spy on them to serve up ads
There is no evidence that advertisers use covert recordings of conversations to target people with adverts, an accusation widely denied by the industry, and yet this belief persists ⌘ Read more

What to know about creatine, the gym supplement with wide benefits
Creatine is commonly associated with athletes and bodybuilders, but the popular supplement seems to have broad benefits on everything from ageing to brain function ⌘ Read more

Common chemical in drinking water hasn’t been tested for safety
Chloramine is used as a disinfectant in drinking water systems from the US to Australia. Research now shows it breaks down into a compound that may have negative health impacts ⌘ Read more

Worm-like fossil is the oldest ancestor of spiders and crustaceans
Arthropods belong to an evolutionary branch – the ecdysozoa – that contains about half of all animal species, and the earliest fossil evidence of the group dates back 550 million years ⌘ Read more

World’s thinnest spaghetti won’t please gourmands but may heal wounds
Spaghetti strands that are 200 times thinner than a human hair could be woven into bandages to help prevent infections ⌘ Read more

A sliver of lab-grown wood has been made from stem cells
Growing wood directly from stem cells could offer an alternative to cutting threatened hardwood trees, but it isn’t clear if it has same properties as actual wood ⌘ Read more

We’ve taken a photo of a star in another galaxy for the first time
Using four telescopes linked together, astronomers have captured an astonishing image of a huge star more than 160,000 light years away ⌘ Read more

Super-bright black holes could reveal if the universe is pixelated
Space-time may not be continuous but instead made up of many discrete bits – and we may be able to see their effects near the edges of unusually bright black holes ⌘ Read more

Mayors are the leaders we need to help fight climate change
By 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban centres - that’s just one reason why mayors will be essential to addressing the climate crisis, making vital adaptations to cities to make them more bearable in a warming world ⌘ Read more

AI simulations of 1000 people accurately replicate their behaviour
Using GPT-4o, the model behind ChatGPT, researchers have replicated the personality and behaviour of more than 1000 people, in an effort to create an alternative to focus groups and polling ⌘ Read more

Planet 10 times the size of Earth is one of the youngest ever found
A large planet has been spotted orbiting a dwarf star that is just 3 million years old, offering possible clues to how the worlds in our solar system came into being ⌘ Read more

IBM entangled two quantum chips to work together for the first time
IBM has bet big on a modular approach to building quantum computers, and now it has successfully linked two quantum chips together to operate as a single device, a key step towards that goal ⌘ Read more

Google DeepMind AI can expertly fix errors in quantum computers
Quantum computers could get a boost from artificial intelligence, thanks to a model created by Google DeepMind that cleans up quantum errors ⌘ Read more

Extreme heat is now making cities unlivable. How can we survive it?
Unbearable heat in China’s megacities reveals the future many of us face, but also suggests ways we can adapt ⌘ Read more

Are calories on menus doing more harm than good?
Many restaurants in countries such as England and the US now print calories on their menus, but some researchers question whether this is really tackling their obesity problem ⌘ Read more

See the sun revealed in stunning glory by Solar Orbiter pictures
The best pictures we have of the sun yet have been delivered thanks to the Solar Orbiter spacecraft ⌘ Read more

Being in space makes it harder for astronauts to think quickly
The effects of being in space can worsen an astronaut’s working memory, processing speed and attention - which could be a problem for future missions ⌘ Read more

Einstein’s theories tested on the largest scale ever – he was right
Analysis of millions of galaxies upholds Albert Einstein’s ideas about gravity and also offers tantalising new hints of how dark energy may have evolved ⌘ Read more

Starship live: Watch Musk launch sixth Starship test as Trump attends
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 at 4pm Central Time (10pm UK). Here’s everything we know so far ⌘ Read more

World’s new fastest supercomputer is built to simulate nuclear bombs
The vast computational power of the El Capitan supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California will be used to support the US nuclear deterrent ⌘ Read more

Heart-shaped mollusc has windows that work like fibre optics
Tiny, solid windows in the shells of heart cockles let in light for the photosynthetic algae inside them – and they could show us how to make better fibre-optic cables ⌘ Read more

The universe could vanish at any moment – why hasn’t it?
A cataclysmic quantum fluctuation could wipe out everything at any moment. The fact that we’re still here is revealing hidden cosmic realities ⌘ Read more

Bluesky is ushering in a pick-your-own algorithm era of social media
Nearly 20 million people have joined Bluesky, a social network that gives you fine-grained control over what you see and who you interact with. I think it is the future of social media, says Chris Stokel-Walker ⌘ Read more

Wild cavefish can somehow survive with almost no sleep at all
Several populations of Mexican tetra fish that live in darkness have independently evolved to need hardly any sleep, but the reason why is a mystery ⌘ Read more

AI maths assistant could help solve problems that humans are stuck on
Most mathematicians have been reluctant to start working with artificial intelligence, but a new tool developed by researchers at Meta may change that ⌘ Read more

We may have solved the mystery of what froze Earth’s inner core
A supercomputer simulation of iron and carbon atoms in Earth’s inner core may explain how a molten ball at the centre of our planet froze solid ⌘ Read more

Quantum time crystals could be used to store energy
The weird thermodynamics found in time crystals could be harnessed to store energy in a quantum battery-like device ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more

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 ⌘ Read more