Using data collected by NASA's Parker Solar Probe during its closest approach to the sun, a University of Arizona-led research team has measured the dynamics and ever-changing "shell" of hot gas from where the solar wind originates.
As the sun rises over the Kalahari Desert, meerkat groups emerge from their burrows and gather closely, turning their bodies toward the warmth of the early light. These quiet morning moments are more than a way to warm up; they offer a revealing glimpse into the social lives of
A large share of medicines developed today may never reach patients for a surprisingly simple reason: they cannot dissolve well enough in water. For most treatments, the oral route remains the gold standard because it is convenient and familiar. However, for a pill to work, its
Time-dependent driving has become a powerful tool for creating novel nonequilibrium phases such as discrete time crystals and Floquet topological phases, which do not exist in static systems. Breaking continuous time-translation symmetry typically leads to the outcome that
Reports suggest that Elon Musk is eyeing up a merger involving SpaceX, Tesla and xAI, but what does he hope to achieve by consolidating his business empire?
Astronomers at Texas A&M University have discovered a rare, tightly packed collision of galaxies in the early universe, suggesting that galaxies were interacting and shaping their surroundings far earlier than scientists had predicted. Using observations from the James Webb
A comprehensive new review paper reveals the staggering loss of biodiversity among island land snails globally. Lead author Robert Cowie of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and co-authors note that "devastation" is
New research conducted by paleontologists from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the CNRS (France) documents the earliest occurrence of a fossilized regurgitation produced by a strictly terrestrial predator from the early Permian Bromacker
Humpback whales are teaching each other a feeding technique called bubble netting, and it's helping a Canadian population recover from whaling.
A group of ocean bacteria long considered perfectly adapted to life in nutrient-poor waters may be more vulnerable to environmental change than scientists realized. The bacteria, known as SAR11, dominate surface seawater worldwide and can make up as much as 40% of marine
In the realm of marine biogeography, there is a widely held scientific principle: the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans are worlds apart. If you dive in Brazil and then in Okinawa, you expect to see entirely different groups of fish and coral. But according to a new global study
When partners work from home, constant digital interruptions increase after-work frustration, strain couples' relationships, and place a heavier psychological burden on women, UNSW research has found.
Public housing high-rises, common in the late 20th century, often siloed residents from surrounding communities. "You had these big towers that were in the middle of large courtyards, spaced far away from other residents," said Matthew Staiger, a research scientist with
Bacteria that thrive on Earth may not make it in the alien lands of Mars. A potential deterrent is perchlorate, a toxic chlorine-containing chemical discovered in Martian soil during various space missions.
Yawning and deep breathing each have different effects on the movement of fluids in the brain, and each of us may have a distinct yawning "signature"
We pick the sci-fi novels we’re most looking forward to reading this month, from a new Brandon Sanderson to the latest from Makana Yamamoto
Synchrotron radiation has revealed a star map made by the ancient astronomer Hipparchus that was thought to be lost to time
The future of work is being rewritten by artificial intelligence (AI)—but technology competence alone will not be enough to empower the workforce of the future. While AI has massive potential to improve efficiency, accuracy, and productivity in the workplace, it's less clear
A Chinese personal safety app called Are You Dead?—recently rebranded as Demumu—has gone viral in recent weeks, attracting widespread media attention.
The venerable Hubble observatory is going strong despite its decades in space and the advent of next-generation successors
Australia has always had heat waves. But this week's heat wave in southeastern Australia is something else. Temperatures in some inland towns in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria were up to 20°C above average for the time of year, which meteorologists described as
This week, Victoria recorded its hottest day in nearly six years. On Jan. 27, the northwest towns of Walpeup and Hopetoun reached 48.9°C, and the temperature in parts of Melbourne soared over 45°C. Towns in South Australia also broke heat records.
Filing taxes every year is an important and necessary task in Canada. But for many, tax preparation and filing can be overwhelming. One reason is that tax forms can sometimes be hard to interpret, especially because most people only deal with them once a year.
Far from simply a source of unstructured online content, disaster management in the digital age can be supported by careful analysis of online social-media data, suggests a paper published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) titled "Social Media for Managing
A U.S.-Indian Earth satellite's ability to see through clouds, revealing insights and characteristics of our planet's surface, is on display in a colorful, newly released image showing the Mississippi River Delta region in southeastern Louisiana.
In the early 1800s, Denmark’s government, medical community, church leaders and school teachers all united to promote the new smallpox vaccine, which led to a remarkably quick elimination of the disease in the capital
Babies and very young sauropods—the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that in adulthood were the largest animals to have ever walked on land—were a key food sustaining predators in the Late Jurassic, according to a new study led by a UCL (University College London)
The Lost Women of Science team uncovers Katharine Burr Blodgett’s overlooked brilliance
The Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of nearly one-third of California's water supply, is looking a little like a New Year's resolution: full of hope and promise at the beginning of January, but now struggling with a bothersome reality check. Starting on Christmas Eve, big
New research looks at carbon dioxide removal—where carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere and stored—and finds that large-scale reliance on land-based methods, such as planting forests or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), can protect biodiversity by avoiding
With insect farming projected to produce millions of tons of insects in the coming years, Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station researchers offer evidence that the insect farming byproduct called "frass" can improve soil health and reduce insect damage in soybean crops.
Members of the New Scientist Book Club give their take on Sierra Greer's award-winning science-fiction novel Annie Bot, our read for February – and the needle swings wildly from positive to negative
In this extract from the February read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet the protagonist of Tim Winton’s Juice, driving across a scorched landscape in a future version of Australia
The New Scientist Book Club's February read is Tim Winton's novel Juice, set in a future Australia that is so hot it is almost unliveable. Here, the author lays out his reasons for writing it – and why he doesn't see it as dystopian
Elizabeth Hohmann is very interested in faeces, and spends her days sifting through stools to find those that could make the biggest difference to other people's health
Argentina's government on Thursday declared an emergency in Patagonia, where wildfires have ripped through vast tracts of forest since the start of the Southern Hemisphere summer.
With another wave of dangerous cold heading for the U.S. South on Friday, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee who are entering their sixth day trapped at home without power in subfreezing temperatures.
Scientists on a research vessel off the central California coast spotted a waved albatross, marking just the second recorded sighting of the bird north of Central America.
Two decades after a breast cancer vaccine trial, every participant is still alive—an astonishing result for metastatic disease. Scientists found their immune systems retained long-lasting memory cells primed to recognize cancer. By enhancing a key immune signal called CD27,
Scientists at Mount Sinai have unveiled a bold new way to fight metastatic cancer by turning the tumor’s own defenses against it. Instead of attacking cancer cells head-on, the experimental immunotherapy targets macrophages—immune cells that tumors hijack to shield themselves
Order doesn’t always form perfectly—and those imperfections can be surprisingly powerful. In materials like liquid crystals, tiny “defects” emerge when symmetry breaks, shaping everything from cosmic structures to everyday technologies. Now, researchers have developed an
Collagen pills sound like a shortcut to younger skin, but solid evidence doesn’t back them up. Higher-quality studies show little benefit, and your body doesn’t absorb collagen in the way ads suggest. Some supplements may even pose safety concerns and lack proper testing.
On Jan. 27, California lawmakers took initial steps toward addressing the public safety concerns posed by the state's growing populations of wolves, mountain lions and other predators—issues the state's top environmental official called a crisis.
It's been 54 years since the last Apollo mission, and since then, humans have not ventured beyond low-Earth orbit. But that's all about to change with next week's launch of the Artemis II mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Every day, thousands of images and signals are collected at sea. Sonar, buoys, satellites, and cameras installed on ships generate enormous amounts of data. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being used to interpret this information. For example, to detect the presence of
A hunk of romaine was easy pickings for Porkchop and her three flippers. On a rainy day last week, the green sea turtle pumped her limbs and stretched her beak up to chomp a lettuce leaf floating on the surface of a tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. That's
In November 2012, during my first year as a Ph.D. student, a 23-year-old medical student knocked on my door. Earlier that day, we had been discussing our ages in our shared kitchen. At 30, I had stayed silent, feeling a sharp sting of embarrassment next to my 20-something
As kids head back to school and attention returns to the daily grind of lunch boxes, new research reveals Australian parents are overwhelmingly supportive of school-provided lunch programs, with nutrition and variety their biggest priorities. Led by Flinders University's Caring
The patchwork efforts to identify and safely remove contamination left by the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires have been akin to the Wild West. Experts have given conflicting guidance on best practices. Shortly after the fires, the federal government suddenly refused to adhere to
Picture an aircraft streaking across the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, unleashing millions of laser pulses into a dense tropical forest. The objective: map thousands of square miles, including the ground beneath the canopy, in fine detail within a matter of days.
