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.

Open problems • Software that is free to use creates many opportunities – not all of which are good

New Scientist

Complex sugars found in interstellar space

The right atmosphere for life? • The discovery of an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet in a star’s habitable zone is the most promising lead yet in our hunt for alien life, reports Leah Crane

Feeling stayed in paralysed hands after brain stimulation ended

Is consciousness quantum? • Has a mathematical analysis finally put a three-decade-long debate about the quantum nature of consciousness to bed, asks Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

Drug combating zombie cells may improve ageing

Stone Age fish farm found in Norway

Antivirals could help treat multiple sclerosis

Nicotine pouches linked to gum irritation

Military tech gets more accessible • A flight-control system used in hobby drones has been installed in Ukraine’s latest cruise missile, highlighting how consumer tech is helping to reduce weapons costs, reports David Hambling

Stealth drone spins so fast it disappears

Loss of low clouds may heat Earth • The expansion of cloudy skies since 1979 has slowed global warming – but this trend is expected to reverse, discovers Alec Luhn

The US-China AI arms race has entered a surprising era • Why has alarm over powerful artificial intelligence models built by Chinese companies waned, asks Matthew Sparkes

Game slashes dementia risk in men • Cognitive training seems to help men’s brains clear plaque-causing protein

Sea worm uses ‘bio-metal’ jaws to crush its prey

Ancient Egyptian princesses wielded weapons

Monkey with strong BO is new to science

Children with terminal brain cancer saved by cell therapy

Supplement could remove microplastic from the body

Maya astronomer’s name decoded • Hieroglyphs on the wall of a Maya building record calculations concerning planetary orbits

Queen’s powerful smell controls naked mole rat colonies

Sneaky maths • A trick to solving problems without answering them brought mathematicians to blows 100 years ago, but it’s now a common part of maths, discovers Jacob Aron

Virtual particles • The quarks that make up a human body are stuck together by weird glue-like particles – but they aren’t real, explains Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Watery fate

Three more great books on the sun’s role in our lives

Let the sunshine in • While recent heatwaves made us stick to the shade, an intriguing book reveals sunlight’s health-giving effects – in moderation, finds David Robson

New Scientist recommends

Extra value • Two great reads this week: Sublimation, a taut thriller set in a world where crossing an international border splits you into two identical copies, and Moss’d in Space, a super cosy yet funny sci-fi novel. Emily H. Wilson enjoyed both

Your letters

Reality’s missing piece • Hints that a strange third type of particle exists are raising hopes that it could explain reality at its deepest level, discovers Miriam Frankel

DEEP HEAT • We may finally have a way to tap geothermal’s vast clean energy almost anywhere in the world, finds Katharine Sanderson

How geothermal is breaking new ground • Enhanced geothermal makes its own underground cracks, closed-loop systems act like buried radiators and superhot...