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

What’s in a name? • Psychology research can help guide leaders towards a true meritocracy

New Scientist

Giant berg heads for South Georgia

Analysis US politics • Trump’s first week With a blitz of executive orders, the new US president set the country on a path to derail climate goals, biomedical research and pandemic readiness, reports Chelsea Whyte

Dinosaurs may have first evolved in the Sahara and Amazon rainforest

World is on track for up to 3.7°C of warming by 2100

Crystal twist could boost electronics • Discovery could pave the way for coveted room-temperature superconductors

Covid smell loss eased by injecting cells into the nose

Holey battery may make wearables more breathable

Use of wind and solar does expose nations to energy price spikes

Brain implant lets man fly a virtual drone by thought

Intentionally burning land reduces effects of wildfires

Corals grown from frozen sperm • Cryopreserved sperm could one day help with coral breeding programmes

Habitable planets may have formed early on

Rock dust alters Earth’s reflectivity • Sprinkling crushed rock on fields could increase how much light is reflected back into space

This illusion expands as you stare at it – now we know why

Giant sloths lived alongside people in South America before extinction

Electric cars now last as long as petrol and diesel counterparts

Orchid has a fail-safe way to pollinate itself

Weight-loss drugs lower risk of 42 conditions

Icy balls may be a new kind of star • A pair of weird objects in space are unlike anything we have seen before

Megaflood shaped Sicily as it refilled the Mediterranean Sea

Extremely cold atoms defy entropy • Some atoms can resist the laws of physics when their quantum properties are controlled

Strange structures deep within Earth are truly ancient

Scorching supersonic winds swirl on alien planet

Vertical solar panels generate electricity while helping crops

Boldly attempting to go • Scientists’ ideas for interstellar spacecraft range from the wholly improbable to the wildly expensive and very difficult, says Ed Regis

No planet B • A cat in hell’s chance? Reintroducing predators like the lynx sounds wonderfully romantic in principle, but there are hoops to jump through first, learns Graham Lawton

Burning up

Human rights for all? • Some animals – and even machines – may turn out to be conscious. Must we wait for scientific certainty before sharing our rights, asks Michael Marshall

Sticking your neck out • The neck is less than 1 per cent of the human body’s surface area, but it plays an oversized role in our lives, finds Elle Hunt

New Scientist recommends

Don’t bet on human futures • A provocative new book delves into the way humans – and elephants – evolved to manage risk. Our strategy may cost the planet dearly, finds Simon Ings

Your letters

Black holes from nowhere • My conception of “virtual” black holes that hide in the fabric of the cosmos may explain what dark energy is, says Samir Mathur

DRESS TO IMPRESS • Our ancestors invented clothing to keep warm, so how did it become a thing of beauty, style and symbolism? Alison George investigates

“By bending rules and giving...