3D printing, microcontrollers and drones have enabled the resurgence of antipersonnel mines in the Russia-Ukraine war, making mines deadlier and more accessible

Dry soil and high pressure can amplify extreme heat, helping to explain why regions like Europe are suffering record-shattering heatwaves much earlier than climate models predicted

A magnet barely wider than a human hair is one of the fastest spinning objects ever and could be useful for both fundamental physics experiments and in quantum technology

Bursts of vigorous physical activity, such as carrying heavy shopping or rushing for the bus, seem to have a significant effect on our brain health and dementia risk

Parkinson's disease is linked to toxic protein clumps and disrupted brain waste removal, which may feed off each other, causing the condition to progress

The Hubble Space Telescope faces a fiery and fatal re-entry to Earth's atmosphere sometime around 2032, but NASA is asking the private sector for ideas to keep it working

Psychoactive compounds have been found in a hair from a Scythian tomb in Siberia, providing the earliest direct evidence of cannabis being used as a drug

The global health and economic benefits of the covid-19 vaccines were thought to have reached up to $38 trillion in their first year, but a new analysis suggests $64.3 trillion is a more accurate figure

Recent fractures on the surface of Mars and gases detected by an orbiter probe provide some of the strongest evidence yet that the planet is volcanically active

Satellites show that the ocean around a gyre of plastic detritus in the Pacific is brightening and changing colour, with the most likely explanation being microplastics suspended in the water column

A magnet barely wider than a human hair is one of the fastest spinning objects ever and could be useful for both fundamental physics experiments and in quantum technology

Data from the Large Hadron Collider has revealed evidence of a long-sought particle process that serves as a guide into the realm of the smallest scales ever probed

The Hubble Space Telescope faces a fiery and fatal re-entry to Earth's atmosphere sometime around 2032, but NASA is asking the private sector for ideas to keep it working

The race to build a moon base is ramping up. Columnist Robin George Andrews explores how NASA is preparing by sending a cave-hunting robot ahead of humans

Recent fractures on the surface of Mars and gases detected by an orbiter probe provide some of the strongest evidence yet that the planet is volcanically active

Some black holes may be older than the stars themselves. And their existence could help solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics: dark matter

3D printing, microcontrollers and drones have enabled the resurgence of antipersonnel mines in the Russia-Ukraine war, making mines deadlier and more accessible

Google has said schools can’t have access to its search engine without AI, even in schools where AI use is being banned. Columnist Jacob Aron says the tech giant shouldn’t be dictating education policy in this way

Australia was the first country to ban under-16s from social media platforms a year ago, but most observers believe the policy isn't working - now a legal challenge is arguing that it is unconstitutional

The first engineered structure built to last for 100,000 years is about to begin operations. The hope is that Onkalo, deep below ground in Finland, will offer a safe place for the country to store nuclear waste

Bursts of vigorous physical activity, such as carrying heavy shopping or rushing for the bus, seem to have a significant effect on our brain health and dementia risk

Parkinson's disease is linked to toxic protein clumps and disrupted brain waste removal, which may feed off each other, causing the condition to progress

The global health and economic benefits of the covid-19 vaccines were thought to have reached up to $38 trillion in their first year, but a new analysis suggests $64.3 trillion is a more accurate figure

A toothbrush with bristles that produce electricity as they bend has shown promise for reducing plaque and gum inflammation

We have an unprecedented choice of food, yet our diets are worse than ever, says palaeoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman. So what can evolution tell us about how to eat better?

Most young children in countries like the UK, the US and Australia attend childcare, where their napping patterns often differ to when they are at home. But we don't know if this affects their development

A significant proportion of babies with peanut allergies quickly grow out of the condition, a finding that could lift a large burden off children, parents and healthcare systems

The next leap in activewear technology may be socks that squeeze parts of our feet, increasing the efficiency of our gait

Lying on a vibrating mattress for 40 minutes, combined with taking two pills that release nitric oxide into the body, enhanced the clearance of an Alzheimer's-related protein via the brain's waste-disposal system

Your body uses collagen to give your skin strength and elasticity, so supplements of this protein seem to make sense to reduce wrinkles. But columnist Alice Klein finds it isn’t this simple

There is a popular metaphor that says frogs will boil to death if their environment warms so slowly they don’t notice. Scientifically, it is considered a myth, but columnist James Woodford finds evidence to the contrary in his own backyard

A bit of leg bone from an Aratasaurus dinosaur fossil collected in Brazil has preserved abundant 3D red blood cells in stunning detail

Observing interactions between real and virtual rummy-nose tetra fish shows that, within a group, each individual takes cues from only one influential neighbour

It's unclear how and why Mars once became warm enough to allow water to flow on its surface, but a new idea suggests it comes down to rust below the surface

Billions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrency have been stolen in just a matter of minutes. Researchers are already unpicking what went wrong

In this extract from Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet some of the inhabitants of a dark planet that drifts outside the Milky Way, descendants of two astronauts marooned there over a century earlier

Physics is generally built on observations, then the maths that supports them comes later. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan takes a look at an effort to reverse this and rebuild the laws of physics from the maths up

From subconscious finger sniffing to rats driving cars, New Scientist staff have reported on many weird, wild or utterly bonkers discoveries and inventions in the 70 years since we began

Forever chemicals are renowned for their durability and their non-stick properties, but they persist for years in the environment. An alternative inspired by plants doesn't have the same problem

On fast flights across the Atlantic, the body clocks of Manx shearwaters get out of sync with local time, leading them to veer away from the most direct flight path

Quantum mechanics stands out by being probabilistic and a new analysis suggests that this property can be traced unexpectedly deep into the theory’s mathematical foundations

Astrophotographer and teacher Brendan Larsen spent 2 hours taking 578 photos of one section of sky in New Zealand to see how satellites are changing our night skies. These shocking images reveal their impact

Astronomers spotted what appears to be a dwarf planet in the outer solar system using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory – if confirmed, it joins a small and exclusive club

Often described as a genius, physicist Sabrina Pasterski built and flew her own plane by the age of 16 and is now developing a mind-bending idea that could finally unify gravity and quantum theory

AI firms can increase the power of their chatbots without updating to new models. Columnist Jacob Aron explains how a simple bit of software can give AI a boost – and whether AI will soon be able to rewrite that code itself

Nearly 19 million bats are estimated to have been killed by wind turbines in the US between 1981 and 2024, but measures can be taken to make them less deadly

Compared with humans, macaques are more likely to miss the bigger picture, but are also less confused by flipped images

Until now, it was thought that the squishy, permeable skin of amphibians was unsuited for marine life because it would absorb too much salt from sea water – but a fossil found in China upends that view

A start-up has already used a biological computer to play Pong, and now the firm says the technology can be used to control robots

Supporters of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have accused Meta of interfering in Brazil’s election by making it easier to generate campaign content promoting his rival, Flávio Bolsonaro

An experiment has produced nanoflares similar to those seen on the sun, and shown that they can help explain why the outer layers of the solar atmosphere are so hot

Locals on Corvo in the Azores are protecting Cory's shearwaters from disorientating light pollution. Photographer Andrea Zanenga learned how the remote community rescues and releases young birds

After trapping a positron for the first time, physicists plan to use the resulting data to look for answers to one of particle physics’ biggest questions

We have long had a seemingly simple question about neutrinos: how much do they weigh? Now, a gigantic experiment in China is poised to find out – and the answer could transform particle physics forever

Northern bottlenose whales are more likely to stick together when individuals are poorly or emaciated

The Drake equation provides a way to guess how many aliens we might be able to communicate with, but it’s also a prime example of the importance of scientific guessing, says columnist Leah Crane

The Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft, set to launch on 20 October, will bring back samples that should solve a moon mystery that has been vexing scientists for more than a century

Since 1972, officials have added 27 leap seconds to the universal clock, but in a meeting this week in France they have decided to abandon the practice

AI has taken huge strides in computer programming and mathematics – physics could be next

We should stop trying to use physics to understand the fundamental nature of reality because it cannot unify all the different properties of reality that we experience