Rocks in the asteroid belt rotating at ultra-fast speeds suggest our understanding of asteroid structure might be wrong

Most covid-19 cases are caused by a particular type of variant, but do we need to worry every time a new one emerges?

A new type of ink could overcome one of the main downsides of tattoos: the inability to make them invisible

Atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty plaque in arteries, usually affects people older than 50, but a "meaningful" proportion of younger adults also have the condition

Forests full of dead trees aren’t just found by the US coasts – they are also appearing far from the sea around freshwater lakes

A new species of giant waterlily identified with the help of social media and satellite photos is just one of three discovered in the past few years

Russia says it is winding down precautionary measures taken after a lab worker at a plague research institute died. But what made officials think these were needed at all?

When OpenAI announced its surprise solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, it produced one proof for humans and one for computers – however, they don't match

Researchers are worried about the impact the strongest-known El Niño will have on the Great Barrier Reef, and whether anything can be done to avert the World Heritage Area’s demise

This El Niño is forecast to end around June next year after smashing all records, but its impacts could persist indefinitely in some parts of the world

A controversial idea linking quantum physics and consciousness is moving from speculation towards experiments that could finally put it to the test

The 2026 Nobel prize in physics has been won by Francis Halzen for his work on neutrinos, which serve as 'ghost-like messengers from the cosmos'

Rocks in the asteroid belt rotating at ultra-fast speeds suggest our understanding of asteroid structure might be wrong

Large language models have unleashed a torrent of text – dealing with it won't be easy

The Roman telescope is NASA’s newest space observatory. Every 10 months, it will get the equivalent of about 1000 years' worth of Hubble observations. Will it find the answers to our questions about dark matter and dark energy? 

Near the centre of the Milky Way, a swarm of stars hurtles around a supermassive black hole at extraordinary speeds. Studying them could be the key to understanding our galaxy

SpaceX’s changing priorities, the war in Ukraine and a lack of competitors are all causing a launch crisis that might last years

US President Donald Trump has declared that artificial intelligence should now be called “super intelligence”. Columnist Jacob Aron explains where that term came from and explores whether its many historical meanings apply today

When OpenAI announced its surprise solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, it produced one proof for humans and one for computers – however, they don't match

OpenAI has released hundreds of papers claiming to make progress on the biggest open problems in mathematics – here are some with the most potential

Large language models have unleashed a torrent of text – dealing with it won't be easy

OpenAI is using mathematics as a test site for its most capable AI models, and that means it has a responsibility to deal with the fallout, rather than just leaving it to mathematicians, says Jacob Aron

AI has been growing ever more capable in mathematics and OpenAI has now released hundreds of papers at the same time – to the astonishment of mathematicians

Kratos is the call sign of one of the leading drone pilots in Ukraine. As part of the Aquila regiment, 3rd Army Corps, he has taken down almost 1000 enemy drones

To succeed at scale, quantum computing must differentiate itself from AI, says columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. But the two technologies are already mixed up in the eyes of the public

Most of the drones being used by Russia in the war with Ukraine are controlled by cables several tens of kilometres long. A new defensive tool cuts the cables to stop the drones

Most covid-19 cases are caused by a particular type of variant, but do we need to worry every time a new one emerges?

A new type of ink could overcome one of the main downsides of tattoos: the inability to make them invisible

Atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty plaque in arteries, usually affects people older than 50, but a "meaningful" proportion of younger adults also have the condition

Russia says it is winding down precautionary measures taken after a lab worker at a plague research institute died. But what made officials think these were needed at all?

The glymphatic system is the brain's recently discovered network for flushing out toxins. Now, we're uncovering surprising ways to boost it to protect brain health

A lab accident is said to have led to the death of a woman from pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, leading to nearly 200 possible contacts being put under observation

Pressing down on shin bones improved cognitive and motor symptoms in mice and pigs with traumatic brain injuries

The 2026 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has gone to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for the development of techniques for controlling brain cells with light

The list of age-related conditions we can avoid by limiting sugar is shockingly long. But does that mean we should stop our children eating any sugar at all? Columnist Alice Klein takes a look at the evidence for cutting out sugar from conception to age 2

The mainstream view is that there are no particularly critical phases in the development of the immune system, but a study of hundreds of infants suggests otherwise

A new species of giant waterlily identified with the help of social media and satellite photos is just one of three discovered in the past few years

The genome of Jonathan the giant tortoise, a 194-year-old resident of St Helena island, has been probed to understand how he has been alive for more than double his species’ average life expectancy

A predecessor of modern mammals that lived in the Jurassic has been found in China with its throat anatomy preserved, allowing researchers to examine the earliest evidence for the evolution of suckling

Genetic analysis of hundreds of tiny bone fragments found in the same cave that yielded the first fossil remains of the Denisovans has revealed that the region was once also home to a previously unknown species of yak

Unlike most modern mammals, which get just two sets of teeth in their lifetime, an ancient species from the Cretaceous, found in China, appears to have had the ability to replace its teeth throughout its life

African savannah elephants use a variety of calls to communicate, and now machine learning has shown that they tune their deepest sounds to match those of other nearby elephants

We have long expected animals to move to cooler habitats as climate change bites, but it now appears that many are actually doing the opposite. What on earth is going on?

An exquisitely preserved fossil found in China shows that many anatomical features seen in birds also evolved independently in another group of dinosaurs

When scientists were asked to review papers for a conference without using AI tools, many of them ignored the request and used AI anyway

Physicists have long struggled with their goal of making gravity a quantum force. A radical post-quantum approach might solve that problem – and clear up other cosmic mysteries, too

The next space race is not about making rockets faster, bigger or more capacious, but about reusing them reliably and cheaply. The US is well ahead, but can China catch up?

Hooking up dogs to non-invasive EEG monitors has helped identify exactly which component of human speech the animals are most attuned to

Orangutans spend more than eight years learning how to cope on their own, and now we have a clearer idea of how they work out which foods to incorporate into their diet

Philosophers have pondered whether we live in a simulation for centuries. Now, Astronomer Royal for Scotland Catherine Heymans suggests a compelling rationale for why our reality might actually be synthetic

According to Newton’s third law, all actions are paired with reciprocal reactions. But breaking this principle allowed an artificial swimmer to move upstream in a quantum stream of light

Starship's next test flight will be its first orbital mission. The craft will also release working Starlink V3 satellites for the first time, making the flight the first commercially useful Starship mission

Following the possible recent detection of a dark matter particle, researchers have already come up with a veritable cornucopia of possible models for what sort of particle it might have been

The theoretical physicist and New Scientist columnist talks to Alison Flood about her new book, The Edge of Space-Time - the September read for the New Scientist Book Club

Stunning pictures of nebulae, stars, the moon and more took top prizes in this year's astrophotography competition, organised by the Royal Observatory in London

Researchers have watched a huge crater form on the lunar surface, and its widespread effects could help inform future exploration of the moon and other similar places

A new twist on nuclear fusion ignition emitted X-rays that are as bright as some stars, which could enable other extreme experiments

The most precise calculation yet of the electroweak force could help fix cracks in the standard model of particle physics

A second dimension of time has long seemed wholly incompatible with reality. But fresh insights involving black holes and quantum mechanics suggest it deserves another look

Particle collisions are inherently quantum, but much of that character is lost when we turn them into classical data. Sarah Alam Malik explores whether preserving more of it could help us spot signs of dark matter and other new physics