New Scientist

New Scientist covers the latest developments in science and technology that will impact your world. New Scientist employs and commissions the best writers in their fields from all over the world. Our editorial team provide cutting-edge news, award-winning features and reports, written in concise and clear language that puts discoveries and advances in the context of everyday life today and in the future.

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In need of a fix • Nitrogen pollution has long ravaged the environment. It is time for a clean-up

New Scientist

Worries over India variant • Health bodies are concerned about coronavirus variants coming from India that seem to be passed on more readily, reports Adam Vaughan

Are booster shots coming? • Vaccine top-ups might boost immune systems and block new coronavirus variants, but there are many unknowns, reports Graham Lawton

Boost or bust?

Covid-19 ages immune system • Long-term health problems may be down to prematurely aged immune cells

Birth was difficult for ancient humans • New research suggests the dangers of childbirth date back further than we thought

Neutron skin of an atom found to be very, very thin

Closest stars and exoplanets to the sun mapped in detail

‘Green’ bitcoin alternative leads to hard disc shortages

Cerne Abbas Giant may have been created over 1000 years ago

Genes that stop DNA damage help people live past 105 years

The cost of keeping time • As a clock is made more accurate, it produces more entropy, increasing disorder as it ticks

US Navy drone will exterminate birds’ eggs near airfields

Worrying you might get bad jet lag could actually make it worse

Many US cities will lose nearly all ash trees by 2060

Large kites flown by robots could help power Mars base

The limits of Facebook’s ‘Supreme Court’ • The social media giant has got itself in a muddle over whether to ban former US president Donald Trump, says Matthew Sparkes

IBM’s new climate-friendly chip • The world’s first 2-nanometre chip could use 75 per cent less energy than those in use today

Blood test could predict when labour will begin

Ant gets non-binary species name to honour Warhol star

Prehistoric food chain frozen in time

Smart pasta takes shape when cooked

Really brief

Set of brain changes that made us human

Cosmopolitan crew went down with the Mary Rose

Scarecrows at sea may save many birds

Goliath vs Goliath • A court case between Apple and Epic Games could decide the future of mobile apps and big tech companies, says Frederike Kaltheuner

This changes everything • The uprising you never expected Smart materials are helping redefine how we view robots. A new era of soft, shape-shifting and nanosized machines is coming, writes Annalee Newitz

Your letters

Amazonian awe

Eat Work Exercise Sleep Repeat

How to engineer a future • A timely book argues that our duty to all life on Earth is to ensure its future by bioengineering it to survive on other worlds, finds Simon Ings

Unwanted cargo • A space crew faces an impossible choice when an unplanned passenger compromises everyone on board, finds Linda Marric

Don’t miss

The sci-fi column • Psychic survival Shards of Earth is the first part of a compelling new space opera, featuring starship battles, godlike entities the size of moons and a hidden dimension with freakish psychological properties, says Clare Wilson

Is everything predetermined? • The idea that the quantum world isn’t as random as it seems is taboo for many physicists. But could it finally make sense of quantum theory, asks Michael Brooks

The godfather of pollution • The damage...