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

You can handle the truth • Only the scientific method can identify the best way to tackle misinformation

New Scientist

Starship plucked out of the sky

1.5°C will bring irreversible harm • We might not be able to cool the world down again after overshooting the 1.5°C warming limit, and even if we can, much of the damage can’t be undone, finds Michael Le Page

Tesla’s Cybercab is a hollow promise of a robotaxi future • Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has a record of overpromising – and the firm’s Cybercab is unlikely to change that, says Chris Stokel-Walker

Weight-loss drugs may lower your desire to exercise

Hospital hit by Hurricane Milton gets water from air

Tiny ‘ruler’ can gauge distances as small as an atom

Primitive microbes found living deep inside 2-billion-year-old rock

Hack turns a smartphone into a listening device

Clever test could reveal whether gravity is subject to quantum weirdness

Individual brain neurons respond to the smell of bananas

Toothbrushes are teeming with hundreds of viruses

Do the Nobel prizes show that AI is the future of science? • Two of the three 2024 science Nobels have been won by people working in AI. What does this mean, asks Chris Stokel-Walker

US ramps up bird flu surveillance • Six more people in the US have tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, highlighting the need for increased vigilance on influenza. Grace Wade reports

Duck vaccination slashes bird flu cases in France

Quantum systems may be able to defy law of entropy

Microscopic gears driven by light can power tiny machines

AIs can cooperate better than humans • People have a limit on how many others they can work with efficiently, but AI models seem able to reach consensus in far bigger groups, finds Matthew Sparkes

Life expectancy growth is slowing and few people will live to 100

Hot sauce reveals how expectation can shape our pain

Getting the facts right • There is a dirty secret in publishing: most popular science books aren’t fact-checked. Readers deserve better, says Michael Marshall

Field notes from space-time • Nearing the event horizon What does it mean to “look” at a black hole? General relativity teaches us that it is all a question of perspective – and technique, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Thinking big

Manifestation on the brain • A neurosurgeon and a neuroscientist separate the “woo” from the work of manifesting in two fascinating new books, finds Kayt Sukel

A graphic take • Frenetic and funny, this book is a whistlestop tour of the climate crisis, says Madeleine Cuff

New Scientist recommends

Feeling alienated • An understated sci-fi drama traverses themes of immigration and identity as a man discovers his father may be from outer space, says Miriam Balanescu

Your letters

Cover story • Can this audacious, all-encompassing idea explain the mind, intelligence and what life is in one fell swoop, asks Elise Cutts

What is a Markov Blanket?

“It’s stripping Indigenous people of their heritage” • Archaeologist Flint Dibble tells Colin Barras why he is fighting claims that we have overlooked an advanced ancient civilisation – and how best to debunk such ideas

THE VERY WORST OF FRIENDS • Love-hate relationships are...