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.

Elsewhere on New Scientist

The real you is worth knowing • Subjectivity is part of research on self-knowledge, but that doesn’t make it useless

New Scientist

COP15 aims ‘unrealistic’ • Goal to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss by 2030 could take 80 rather than eight years to achieve, reports Madeleine Cuff

Was Homo naledi a fire starter? • An extinct human species seems to have used fire for cooking and illumination, despite its small brain and primitive features, reports Alison George

Baby fruit fly’s brain is largest to be completely mapped so far

Huge plume of rising hot rocks may be shaking Mars…

…while impact crater that caused Martian megatsunami traced

Twitter quitters haven’t left yet • Many Twitter users announced they would move to Mastodon, but few actually have

Ant pupae produce a liquid eaten by larvae and adults

Titan’s glistening clouds • The James Webb Space Telescope has imaged Saturn’s largest moon

Famous paintings become mini masterpieces

Yellowstone supervolcano is stuffed with magma

Coronavirus • China’s failure to vaccinate makes giving up on zero covid a huge risk The country has eased some lockdown restrictions, which could lead to millions of older people dying, reports Michael Le Page

Reviving Neanderthal antibiotics • Exploring the DNA of archaic humans could help bring back extinct, bacteria-killing proteins

Flying squirrels use carving skills to store nuts in trees • TWO species of flying squirrel living in the tropical rainforests of Hainan Island off China carve grooves around nuts so they can wedge the food in the forks of twigs.

Sperm-blocking gel could work as a contraceptive

Volcanic eruption shut down key climate observatory

Ancient skull rewrites the story of bird evolution

Drug clears sleeping sickness parasite from the body

Wormhole in a quantum computer • Researchers sent a message through a simulated wormhole using quantum entanglement

Vaccine protects mice against plague bacteria

Questions over Alzheimer’s drug • Lecanemab slows cognitive decline, but its benefits may not outweigh its potential risks

Torn up star is one of brightest events ever

Bacterial risk from ocean microfibres

Endangered gecko climbs back from the brink

Really brief

Challenges of the deep • Links between marine sciences and commercial interests are a hangover from an imperial era that must end, says Helen Scales

This changes everything • What comes after Twitter? With the platform looking a little the worse for wear after its recent acquisition by Elon Musk, Annalee Newitz tries the best alternatives, so you don’t have to

Night life

Your letters

Hunting human origin stories • From a bone fragment of a mysterious new species to the latest on cave art, a powerful book shows how science is rewriting the past, finds Alison George

Tragedy on Whakaari • The heartbreaking story of tourists trapped on a volcanic island during a major eruption is subtly told, says Gregory Wakeman

Don’t miss

A twitcher’s paradise • A new book on the rise of birds isn’t easy going, but it shows why they were vital to evolutionary theory – and birders will love it, says Simon Ings

Who do you think you are? • When it comes to knowing...