Plastic can be programmed to have a lifespan of days, months or years
Inspired by natural polymers like DNA, chemists have devised a way to engineer plastic so it breaks down when it is no longer needed, rather than polluting the environment ⌘ Read more

Our verdict on sci-fi novel Every Version of You: We (mostly) loved it
New Scientist Book Club members share their thoughts on our November read, Grace Chan’s Every Version of You ⌘ Read more

Read an extract from The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading Iain M. Banks’s classic sci-fi novel The Player of Games. In this extract, we meet protagonist Gurgeh for the first time ⌘ Read more

Why sci-fi novelist Iain M. Banks was an ‘astounding’ world-builder
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading the late Iain M. Banks’s Culture novel The Player of Games. Fellow science fiction author Bethany Jacobs reveals how his work inspired her ⌘ Read more

Supermassive dark matter stars may be lurking in the early universe
Stars powered by dark matter instead of nuclear fusion could solve several mysteries of the early universe, and we may have spotted the first hints that they are real ⌘ Read more

Origin story of domestic cats rewritten by genetic analysis
Domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe in the past 2000 years, according to DNA evidence, while in China a different species of cat lived alongside people much earlier ⌘ Read more

Physicists have worked out a universal law for how objects shatter
Whether it is a cube of sugar or a chunk of a mineral, a mathematical analysis can identify how many fragments of each size any brittle object will break into ⌘ Read more

Emergency response needed to prevent climate breakdown, warn experts
Scientists sounded the alarm on the dire consequences of continued inaction at a briefing in London, warning that we could be heading for “unprecedented societal and ecological collapse” ⌘ Read more

Warming and droughts led to collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation
Hotter temperatures and a series of droughts in what is now Pakistan and India fragmented one of the world’s major early civilisations, providing a “warning shot” for today ⌘ Read more

Deadly fungus makes sick frogs jump far, possibly to find mates
Chytrid fungus is a scourge to global amphibian populations, but before it kills some frogs, it can produce symptoms that may help the infected animals find mates and spread the fungus further ⌘ Read more

Monthly injection could replace daily steroid pills for severe asthma
Daily steroid pills are often necessary for severe cases of asthma, but they raise the risk of several serious conditions. Now, scientists have shown that a monthly antibody injection can eliminate the need for the pills ⌘ Read more

Easter Island statues may have been built by small independent groups
Mapping of the main quarry on Easter Island where giant statues were carved has uncovered evidence that the monuments may not have been created under the direction of a single chief ⌘ Read more

Cold-water swimming has benefits for the brain as well as the body
There is a growing body of research on the physical benefits of going for a dip in chilly water, but now researchers are starting to find that cold-water swimming may also be reshaping our brains for the better in lasting ways ⌘ Read more

The science of swimming trunks – including tightness analysis
Feedback dives into a new piece of research on the merits of swimming briefs or looser swimming shorts – and raises an eyebrow at its conclusion ⌘ Read more

Pandas use tools to scratch thanks to a strange evolutionary quirk
Captive giant pandas have been seen breaking off twigs and bamboo pieces to scratch hard-to-reach spots, using a crude opposable thumb that other bears don’t have ⌘ Read more

A revolutionary way to map our bodies is helping cure deadly diseases
New tools that create ultra-precise maps of our tissues are transforming our ability to diagnose and cure once-fatal illnesses ⌘ Read more

Ancient human foot bones shed light on how two species coexisted
Scientists have finally assigned foot bones found in 2009 to an ancient human species, and the move suggests that different types of hominins lived close by in harmony ⌘ Read more

We might have just seen the first hints of dark matter
Unexplained gamma ray radiation coming from the edge of the Milky Way galaxy could be produced by self-annihilating dark matter particles – but the idea requires further investigation ⌘ Read more

We may need a fourth law of thermodynamics for living systems
The laws of thermodynamics don’t accurately account for the complex processes in living cells – do we need a new one to accurately measure the ways living systems are out of equilibrium? ⌘ Read more

The long-overlooked insects that could save our crops
Hoverflies, often mistaken for bees and wasps, pollinate three quarters of our crops. Now we’re discovering we can train them to be even more efficient ⌘ Read more

Easily taxed grains were crucial to the birth of the first states
The cultivation of wheat, barley and maize, which are easily stored and taxed, seems to have led to the emergence of large societies, rather than agriculture generally ⌘ Read more

Your brain undergoes four dramatic periods of change from age 0 to 90
Our brain wiring seems to undergo four major turning points at ages 9, 32, 66 and 83, which could influence our capacity to learn and our risk of certain conditions ⌘ Read more

A new understanding of causality could fix quantum theory’s fatal flaw
Quantum theory fails to explain how the reality we experience emerges from the world of particles. A new take on quantum cause and effect could bridge the gap ⌘ Read more

Have we found a greener way to do deep-sea mining?
There are widespread concerns that deep-sea mining for metals will damage fragile ecosystems. But if mining ever goes ahead, hydrogen plasma could shrink the carbon footprint of smelting the metal ores ⌘ Read more

Sperm’s evolutionary origins go back before multicellular animals
Analysis of the DNA and proteins of a range of animals has revealed that sperm’s molecular toolkit arose in our single-celled ancestors, perhaps more than a billion years ago ⌘ Read more

Why is climate action stalling, not ramping up as Earth gets hotter?
As the impact of global warming becomes more obvious, you might expect countries to step up climate action and preparation, but we’re seeing the opposite happen ⌘ Read more

COP30 keeps climate cooperation alive but hanging by a thread
The 194 countries still taking part in UN climate negotiations reaffirmed the Paris Agreement following the US withdrawal, even if they agreed on little else ⌘ Read more

Extinct animals in Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age make it a must-watch
From woolly mammoths to giant sloths, via some lesser-known ice-age beasts like ‘killer koalas’, the visuals in this documentary are simply astounding ⌘ Read more

Astronomers may have glimpsed evidence of the biggest stars ever seen
The distant universe might be littered with supermassive stars between 1000 and 10,000 times the mass of the sun, which could solve a cosmic mystery about the origins of extremely large black holes ⌘ Read more

Undersea ‘storms’ are melting the ‘doomsday’ glacier’s ice shelf
Spinning vortices of water trapped under the Thwaites glacier ice shelf account for 20 per cent of the ice melt. They’re expected to get worse as the world warms ⌘ Read more

Ancient tracks may record stampede of turtles disturbed by earthquake
Around 1000 markings on a slab of rock that was once a seafloor during the Cretaceous period may have been made by sea turtle flippers and swiftly buried by an earthquake ⌘ Read more

Quantum computers need classical computing to be truly useful
Conventional computing devices will play a crucial role in turning quantum computers into tools with real-world application ⌘ Read more

Common type of inflammatory bowel disease linked to toxic bacteria
The discovery that a toxin made by bacteria found in dirty water might help trigger ulcerative colitis could lead to new treatments for this form of IBD ⌘ Read more

Moss spores survive and germinate after 283-day ‘space walk’
Astronauts strapped moss spores to the outside of the International Space Station for nine months - and most of them survived the challenging experience ⌘ Read more

Mouse ‘midwives’ help their pregnant companions give birth
Scientists have observed mice helping each other when they encounter difficulties during birth, prompting a rethink of caregiving among rodents and other animals ⌘ Read more

Daily pill could offer alternative to weight-loss injections
Orforglipron, a GLP-1 drug taken as a pill, achieved positive results in people with obesity and type 2 diabetes, although it seems less effective than injectable drugs ⌘ Read more

Vanishing Y chromosomes could aid or worsen lung cancer outcomes
The health impacts of men losing their Y chromosome from their cells are increasingly coming to light, with the loss playing a complicated role in the most common form of lung cancer ⌘ Read more

We’ve found an unexpected structure in the solar system’s Kuiper belt
A newly discovered cluster of objects called the “inner kernel” of the Kuiper belt could teach us about the early history of the solar system – including the movement of Neptune ⌘ Read more

Why quasicrystals shouldn’t exist but are turning up in strange places
Matter with “forbidden” symmetries was once thought to be confined to lab experiments, but is now being found in some of the world’s most extreme environments ⌘ Read more

Quantum computers that recycle their qubits can limit errors
To make quantum computers more efficient and reliable, some of their basic components must be constantly reused – several quantum computer designs can now do just that ⌘ Read more

Light can influence the magnetic properties of some materials
An experiment 180 years ago first demonstrated a connection between light and electromagnetism – but the link is deeper than we thought ⌘ Read more

Kissing may have evolved in an ape ancestor 21 million years ago
Rather than being a recent cultural development, kissing may have been practised by other early humans like Neanderthals and our ape ancestors ⌘ Read more

Four-fifths of the world’s population now live in urban areas
A comprehensive UN report has found that cities and towns are home to 81 per cent of the world’s population, much more than previously thought ⌘ Read more

We can finally hear the long-hidden music of the Stone Age
Ancient rock art was meant to be heard as well as seen and now acoustic archaeologists are bringing the sounds of prehistoric rituals to life ⌘ Read more

Mathematicians say Google’s AI tools are supercharging their research
AlphaEvolve, an AI system created by Google DeepMind, is helping mathematicians do research at a scale that was previously impossible - even if it does occasionally “cheat” to find a solution ⌘ Read more

What is cloud seeding and could it end the drought in Iran?
Facing its worst drought in decades, Iran is attempting to stimulate rain by spreading seeding agents in clouds, but the technique is likely to have modest benefits at best ⌘ Read more

Vast Bronze Age city discovered in the plains of Kazakhstan
A major settlement in Central Asia called Semiyarka dating back to 1600 BC had houses, a big central building and even an industrial zone for producing copper and bronze ⌘ Read more

Ancient figurine may show sexual encounter between woman and goose
A 12,000-year-old clay sculpture found in Israel depicts a goose on the back of a woman, and archaeologists suggest it may be a depiction of an animistic mythological scene ⌘ Read more

Neanderthals’ hefty noses weren’t well adapted to cold climates
Neanderthals were thought to have structures inside their noses that helped them deal with the cold, but analysis of an exceptionally preserved specimen contradicts that ⌘ Read more

Parasitic ant tricks workers into killing their queen, then usurps her
Some ants kill the queens of another species and take over their colonies, but we now know at least one species gets workers to do the dirty work for them through a kind of chemical subterfuge ⌘ Read more