Why it would be utter madness to stop funding mRNA vaccine technology
It’s not a just a revolutionary and safe vaccine technology – mRNA could help make the best and most expensive drugs in the world affordable for everyone ⌘ Read more

NASA has made the first radio telescope observations on the moon
The Odysseus spacecraft made a rough landing on the moon last year, toppling over and rendering much of its equipment unusable, but an onboard NASA radio telescope called ROLSES-1  was able to make some observations ⌘ Read more

Classrooms decorated like woodlands seem to slow myopia progression
Spending a lot of time outdoors may be the best way to prevent myopia, or delay its progression, but this isn’t always practical. Now, research suggests that bringing the outside in may be a valid workaround ⌘ Read more

German company set for first commercial rocket launch from Europe
Isar Aerospace is preparing to launch its Spectrum rocket from a base in Norway, which would make it the first orbital launch from continental Europe outside Russia ⌘ Read more

A radical new idea for how our ancestors invented stone tools
Stone tools are considered the first form of technology devised by ancient humans – but they might not have been invented from scratch ⌘ Read more

Why you should slow down your brain’s ageing – and how to do it
Many of us have a brain that is older than our years. But there are plenty of things you can do to counteract this, says neuroscience columnist Helen Thomson ⌘ Read more

Monkeys choose babysitters based on who has more parenting experience
Young female black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys often want to hold other females’ infants, but mothers are much more permissive of experienced caregivers ⌘ Read more

Nuclear fusion fuel could be made greener with new chemical process
Lithium-6 is a crucial material for nuclear fusion reactors, but isolating it is challenging – now researchers have found a way to do this without using toxic mercury ⌘ Read more

Two-fingered dinosaur used its enormous claws to eat leaves
A dinosaur fossil discovered in Mongolia boasts the largest ever complete claw, but the herbivorous species only used it to grasp vegetation ⌘ Read more

AI can forecast the weather in seconds without needing supercomputers
While earlier weather-forecasting AIs have replaced some tasks done by traditional models, new research uses machine learning to replace the entire process, making it much faster ⌘ Read more

We’re finally learning how perimenopause profoundly changes the brain
The hormonal upheaval in the run-up to menopause can cause cognitive difficulties. But researchers are also finding that this can be a critical window for protecting long-term brain health ⌘ Read more

Scientists push back against US attacks on science at physics summit
At the largest gathering of physicists in the world, the American Physical Society says it won’t back down in the face of executive orders to limit diversity programmes ⌘ Read more

New Scientist recommends Weather Girl, an electrifying one-woman show
Weather Girl, a play in London’s Soho Theatre about a weather forecaster who finally snaps as the climate apocalypse looms, is frantic and funny ⌘ Read more

Tattoos are being linked to some cancers. Are they really a risk?
Having a tattoo has been linked to a higher risk of conditions like lymphoma and skin cancer, but the situation isn’t clear-cut ⌘ Read more

Dark energy isn’t what we thought – and that may transform the cosmos
Our current best theories of the universe suggest that dark energy is making it expand faster and faster, but new observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument suggest this mysterious force is actually growing weaker ⌘ Read more

Popular TikTok videos about ADHD are full of misinformation
The top 100 videos about ADHD on TikTok feature many claims that psychologists consider inaccurate, but students often identify misleading videos as helpful ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s quantum computer hit with criticism at key physics meeting
After weeks of criticism, Microsoft promised to show new data about its Majorana 1 quantum computer at the biggest meeting of the world’s physicists. Researchers in the room tell New Scientist they were not impressed with what they saw. ⌘ Read more

Microdosing LSD is not an effective ADHD treatment
The first randomised controlled trial of microdosing LSD as a treatment for ADHD found the psychedelic drug wasn’t any more effective than a placebo in alleviating symptoms ⌘ Read more

Euclid space telescope captures 26 million galaxies in first data drop
The European Space Agency has released the first batch of large-scale images from the Euclid space telescope, which astronomers have already used to find hundreds of strong gravitational lenses ⌘ Read more

The world’s climate is in uncharted territory, warns major report
A World Meteorological Organization report details a long list of grim records for everything from CO2 levels and temperature to sea ice loss and sea level rise ⌘ Read more

Weird meteorite may be relic of lost planet that no longer exists
A meteorite discovered in north-west Africa in 2023 didn’t come from a large asteroid or any of the known planets of the solar system – but it might have formed on a planet that was destroyed long ago ⌘ Read more

Ultra-fast chargers can refill electric car batteries in minutes
Speedy new chargers from Chinese automaker BYD take just 5 minutes to restore 400 kilometres of an electric car’s range ⌘ Read more

Best ever map of early universe is double-edged sword for cosmologists
The finest ever map of the cosmic microwave background - the faint evidence of the universe’s early form - has yielded precise confirmation of the age of the cosmos and its rate of expansion. But for some scientists, the findings offer a frustrating lack of clues to major cosmological mysteries ⌘ Read more

Psychology is revealing how to have a better relationship with money
Money is a deeply emotive subject, our attitudes to it vary wildly and we are reluctant to bring it up in conversation. Could new research help us to be less weird about it? ⌘ Read more

Dust devils on Mars produce lightning-like zaps of electricity
NASA’s Perseverance rover recorded unusual sounds as a Martian dust devil passed directly over the robotic vehicle in 2021, and we now know they came from electrical activity in the storm ⌘ Read more

Have we vastly underestimated the total number of people on Earth?
A new way of estimating rural populations has found that we may be undercounting people who live in these areas, potentially inflating the global population beyond the official count of 8.2 billion - but not everyone agrees ⌘ Read more

Most quakes on Mars happen during the summer – and we don’t know why
NASA’s InSight lander recorded surprisingly large quakes that indicate Mars is more seismically active than we first thought. Mysteriously, they only happen during Martian summers ⌘ Read more

LHC finds intriguing new clues about our universe’s antimatter mystery
Analysing the aftermath of particle collisions has revealed two new instances of “CP violation”, a process that explains why our universe contains more matter than antimatter ⌘ Read more

What the extraordinary medical know-how of wild animals can teach us
Birds do it, chimps do it, even monarch butterflies do it – and by paying more attention to how animals self-medicate, we can find new treatments for ourselves ⌘ Read more

Rolling boulders on Titan could threaten NASA’s Dragonfly mission
The wind on Saturn’s largest moon is strong enough to blow around rocks of up to half a metre in diameter, which could put NASA’s upcoming Dragonfly mission at risk ⌘ Read more

How a start-up plans to mine the moon for a rare form of helium
A private moon mission planned for 2027 will be the first step towards commercial lunar mining of rare and expensive helium-3 ⌘ Read more

What makes a good day a good day, according to science
Surveys that ask thousands of people how they spend their time have revealed some surprising activities that seem to make any given day a good one ⌘ Read more

The surprising new idea behind what sparked life on Earth
We may be starting to get a grasp on what kick-started life on Earth – and it could help us search for it on other planets ⌘ Read more

We may have discovered how dark oxygen is being made in the deep sea
A newly discovered mechanism could explain the shock finding last year that oxygen is produced by metallic nodules on the seafloor – and it might be happening on other planets, too ⌘ Read more

Mathematicians solve 125-year-old problem to unite key laws of physics
Can one single mathematical framework describe the motion of a fluid and the individual particles within it? This question, first asked in 1900, now has a solution that could help us understand the complex behaviour of the atmosphere and ocean. ⌘ Read more

Should governments really be using AI to remake the state?
New Scientist’s revelation that a UK minister is asking ChatGPT for advice raises the question of what role these new AI tools should play in government – and whether we should really think of them as intelligent ⌘ Read more

Memory illusion makes you think events occurred earlier than they did
It can be difficult to recall exactly when a specific event happened, and now it seems our memory can be tricked into pushing occurrences back in time, making us think they happened earlier than in reality ⌘ Read more

AI scientists are sceptical that modern models will lead to AGI
In a survey of AI researchers, most say current AI models are unlikely to lead to artificial general intelligence with human-level capabilities, even as companies invest billions of dollars in this goal ⌘ Read more

How cloud-seeding could help us predict when it will snow
These brilliant images show how researchers in Switzerland are using weather-modification techniques to understand how ice crystals form in clouds, an important and poorly understood factor in climate and weather models ⌘ Read more

More than half of life on Earth experiencing unprecedented conditions
An analysis of changes to global ecosystems has revealed that almost nowhere is untouched by the influence of humanity, with more than 50 per cent of the planet’s land mass experiencing “novel” conditions ⌘ Read more

Why the long history of calculating pi will never be completed
Building the full value of pi has been a project thousands of years in the making, but just how much of this infinite number do we actually need, asks our maths columnist Jacob Aron ⌘ Read more

You could train your brain to be less fooled by optical illusions
Shifting your focus could help you overcome the trickery of optical illusions ⌘ Read more

Adding extra protein to ultra-processed foods helps reduce overeating
The health problems associated with ultra-processed foods may be explained by the way the products encourage overeating. Adding more protein to the foods might help people limit their intake – but it isn’t a complete solution ⌘ Read more

NOAA cancels monthly climate and weather update calls
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it is discontinuing its regular update calls due to staffing problems, but its researchers may also fear political retaliation for discussing climate change ⌘ Read more

Fossils reveal what the fur of early mammals looked like
A study of the fossilised fur of six mammals from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods has found they were all greyish-brown in colour, which would have helped them hide from dinosaurs ⌘ Read more

Destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam left behind a toxic legacy
The 2023 breach of the Kakhovka dam drained a huge reservoir and exposed a vast area of toxic sediment, creating a debate about how best to rebuild after the Russia-Ukraine war ⌘ Read more

NASA may have to cancel major space missions due to budget cuts
Potential cuts of up to 50 per cent of NASA’s science budget could mean cancelling missions including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Voyager probes ⌘ Read more

Ancient humans lived in an ‘uninhabitable’ climate 25,000 years ago
Bones dating back 25,000 years suggest that humans lived in extremely icy conditions in Tibet, which were previously thought to be uninhabitable ⌘ Read more

Hera asteroid mission takes stunning images of Mars’s moon Deimos
A mission to survey the results of a deliberate crash between an asteroid and a NASA spacecraft has taken stunning images of Mars and its moon Deimos ⌘ Read more

California isn’t clearing forests fast enough to tame wildfires
To reduce the growing risk of intense wildfires, California is cutting and burning the areas that fuel them – but these efforts may be moving too slowly ⌘ Read more