Polaris Dawn mission is one giant leap for private space exploration
The success of the all-civilian spacewalk on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission shows that private space flight is starting to catch up with government space agencies ⌘ Read more

Antidote to deadly pesticides boosts bee survival
Feeding bees edible bits of hydrogel increases their odds of surviving pesticide exposure by 30 per cent ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s warnings about risky AI are mostly just marketing
A powerful new AI called o1 is the most dangerous that OpenAI has ever released, the firm claims – but who are these warnings for, asks Chris Stokel-Walker ⌘ Read more

Cats have brain activity recorded with the help of crocheted hats
Custom-made wool caps have enabled scientists to record electroencephalograms in awake cats for the first time, which could help assess their pain levels ⌘ Read more

Complex chemicals found on Enceladus improve prospects for life
The Cassini mission’s samples from Saturn’s moon Enceladus have signs of various organic molecules that could be among the ingredients needed for life to get started ⌘ Read more

Cause and effect may not actually be muddled in the quantum realm
The direction of cause and effect was brought into question for quantum objects more than a decade ago, but new calculations may offer a way to restore it ⌘ Read more

Weather forecasts could warn about events made worse by climate change
Thanks to advances in weather simulation, forecasts of heatwaves and hurricanes could soon come with information about the extent to which they were fuelled by climate change ⌘ Read more

Blood test could diagnose ALS with up to 97 per cent accuracy
ALS, the most common form of motor neuron disease, can take a long time to diagnose, but a blood test could help doctors spot the condition sooner ⌘ Read more

Ig Nobel prizes 2024: The unexpected science that won this year
From drunk worms to mammals that breath through their anuses, founder Marc Abrahams on the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes, for research that “makes people laugh, then think” ⌘ Read more

The deepfakes of Trump and Biden that you are most likely to fall for
Experiments show that viewers can usually identify video deepfakes of famous politicians – but fake audio and text are harder to detect ⌘ Read more

Mega El Niños may have played a part in the Permian mass extinction
Extreme weather events lasting more than a decade could have killed off forests 250 million years ago, contributing to Earth’s worst ever mass extinction ⌘ Read more

Greenland landslide caused freak wave that shook Earth for nine days
Seismologists were mystified by a strange signal that persisted for nine days in 2023 – now its source has been identified as a standing wave caused by a landslide in Greenland ⌘ Read more

Another extreme low for Antarctic sea ice signals a permanent shift
An area of missing Antarctic sea ice twice the size of Texas adds to concerns that the ice has seen a lasting “regime shift”, with consequences for ecosystems and global ocean circulation ⌘ Read more

SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew complete ‘stand-up’ civilian spacewalk
A groundbreaking civilian spacewalk saw two astronauts partially exit a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule wearing a brand new design of spacesuit. Every previous spacewalk ever completed before this was performed by government-trained astronauts. ⌘ Read more

Visible aurora spotted for the first time on Mars by NASA rover
If you were standing on Mars as it was hit by a solar flare, you might be able to see an aurora just like on Earth ⌘ Read more

One dose of a smallpox vaccine still gives good protection for mpox
A single dose of a smallpox vaccine seems to lower the risk of catching mpox by around 60 per cent, and two doses would probably be even better ⌘ Read more

Why everyone needs to stop joking that they’re “a little bit OCD”
Far from being a behavioural quirk, obsessive-compulsive disorder is a debilitating condition with complex causes that we’re just beginning to understand. We should treat it as such, and stop with the misguided quips ⌘ Read more

Genome of Neanderthal fossil reveals lost tribe cut off for millennia
Analysis of DNA from a Neanderthal fossil found in a French cave indicates that it belonged to a group that was isolated for more than 50,000 years ⌘ Read more

Ancient people of Easter Island made return trips to South America
DNA analysis shows that people from Easter Island had contact with Indigenous Americans around the 1300s, and finds there was no population crash before the arrival of Europeans ⌘ Read more

Bubbles of gas 75 times larger than our sun spotted on another star
Gas bubbles on the surface of a star have been observed for the first time in detail outside our solar system, and they are 75 times the size of our sun ⌘ Read more

A fresh understanding of OCD is opening routes to new treatments
We’re finally pinning down the mechanisms that drive obsessive-compulsive disorder, revealing a complex combination of imbalanced brain networks, the immune system and even gut microbes ⌘ Read more

Huge new volcano has burst through the surface of Jupiter’s moon Io
In between two spacecraft visiting Jupiter’s moon Io, a volcano spreading material over hundreds of kilometres has appeared ⌘ Read more

Fish size themselves up in a mirror to decide if they can win a fight
Cleaner wrasse use their reflection to build a mental image of their body size, which they use to compare themselves to rivals before picking a fight ⌘ Read more

Ants change the way they build nests to stop diseases spreading
When worker ants are exposed to a pathogenic fungus, they build nests that are more compartmentalised to reduce the risk of an epidemic ⌘ Read more

How the hidden lives of dinosaurs are being revealed by new technology
From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs ⌘ Read more

Astronomers worried by launch of five new super-bright satellites
Five satellites due to launch this week could be brighter than most stars, and astronomers fear the growth of such constellations could have a catastrophic impact ⌘ Read more

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission blasts off for first civilian spacewalk
Four private astronauts are riding a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule further from Earth than any human since 1972, where they will attempt the first ever civilian spacewalk ⌘ Read more

Cloud atlas of Mars reveals an atmosphere unlike our own
Using images captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, researchers have created a cloud atlas of Mars, to better understand the climate of the Red Planet ⌘ Read more

Most cities are rainier than their surroundings due to heat and smog
A global survey of more than a thousand cities shows heat and air pollution in urban environments often have a measurable influence on rainfall, creating urban “wet islands” ⌘ Read more

I took control of NASA’s Valkyrie robot and it blew my mind
Are humanoid robots the future of space exploration? New Scientist reporter James Woodford took NASA’s Valkyrie for a spin to find out ⌘ Read more

Quantum experiment rewrites a century-old chemistry law
The Arrhenius equation, which has accurately described rates of chemical reactions for more than a century, may have to be tweaked for the quantum realm ⌘ Read more

Chronic fatigue syndrome could be quickly diagnosed via a blood test
Levels of certain cells, fatty molecules and proteins in the blood are different in people with chronic fatigue syndrome than in those without it, which could help doctors spot the condition sooner ⌘ Read more

Watch eels escape from the stomachs of fish after being swallowed
X-ray videos of Japanese eels swallowed whole by dark sleeper fish have revealed how the eels can make a daring escape from being digested ⌘ Read more

How the most precise clock ever could change our view of the cosmos
Forget atomic clocks. Nuclear clocks, which only drop a second every 300 billion years, can test whether nature’s fundamental constants are constant after all ⌘ Read more

Endangered wombat’s rare encounter with echidna caught on camera
A camera trap at an Australian nature refuge has captured a boisterous interaction between a northern hairy-nosed wombat and an echidna ⌘ Read more

Clown visits may shorten the amount of time children spend in hospital
Medical clowns, who play with children in hospitals, may help them be discharged sooner by reducing their heart rates ⌘ Read more

The jet stream may be starting to shift in response to climate change
Bands of fast-moving wind that blow west to east around the globe play a crucial role in weather – a poleward shift in parts of these jet streams could cause dramatic changes in weather from the western US to the Mediterranean ⌘ Read more

AI helps find simple charging trick to boost battery lifespan
Charging new lithium-ion batteries with high currents can significantly increase their total lifespan ⌘ Read more

Smart speakers at crime scenes could provide valuable clues to police
Information on faces recognised, voice commands and internet searches can be extracted from an Amazon Echo smart assistant without help from the user or manufacturer ⌘ Read more

Stunningly preserved pterosaur fossils reveal how they soared
The largest pterosaurs, ancient reptiles that were the first vertebrates to master flight, may have mostly soared while smaller ones flapped their wings, a pattern that persists in today’s birds ⌘ Read more

Evidence mounts that saline nasal drops and sprays help treat colds
Saline drops and sprays have already been linked to reduced cold symptoms in adults and now a study suggests they also work in children ⌘ Read more

Bat die-off led to more insecticide use and more infant deaths in US
In counties in the US affected by a bat-killing disease, there has been a 31 per cent increase in insecticide use and an 8 per cent rise in infant mortality ⌘ Read more

Even simple bacteria can anticipate the changing seasons
Cyanobacteria exposed to shorter days are better at surviving cold conditions, showing that even simple organisms can prepare for the arrival or summer and winter ⌘ Read more

The Atlantic has been suspiciously quiet this hurricane season
The forecasts predicted an extreme storm season in the Atlantic, but so far there have only been three named hurricanes – so where are all the storms? ⌘ Read more

Google breakthrough paves way for large-scale quantum computers
Google has built a quantum computer that makes fewer errors as it is scaled up, and this may pave the way for machines that could solve useful real-world problems for the first time ⌘ Read more

The Starliner stranding shows why NASA was wise to have a backup plan
Space missions are extremely hard. Things going wrong should be expected, so having a sensible plan B is crucial ⌘ Read more

Ultra-strong stretchy material could enable shape-shifting aircraft
A new procedure turns an alloy of nickel and titanium into a material as strong as steel but 20 times stretchier – and one application could be building planes with shape-shifting wings ⌘ Read more

Does the structure of your brain affect your risk of depression?
A network of neurons in the brain seems to be larger in people with depression, which could change how we think about the condition’s causes ⌘ Read more

A fifth of the world’s plastic garbage is either burned or littered
Patchy garbage collection services result in more than 50 million tonnes of unmanaged plastic waste each year, and the majority of this is incinerated ⌘ Read more

Will an experimental mRNA vaccine help fight the mpox outbreak?
After an mRNA vaccine for mpox achieved promising results in monkeys, researchers say it could have several advantages over existing vaccines – but cold storage requirements mean it will be hard to roll out in some hard-hit countries ⌘ Read more