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Three missions slated to launch this year will begin to search the lunar surface for a suitable base location

Researchers have designed a quantum version of a pendulum clock. It could shed light on timekeeping in the quantum realm

Gold is chemically inert and so doesn't tarnish, but exactly why had been a mystery

We've been looking at nature the wrong way, argues Rowan Hooper. If we stop focusing on the individual, we get a whole new picture of how life on Earth – and elsewhere – may have begun

Critical safety equipment in many train systems is vulnerable to disruption by space weather, which could lead to fatal accidents

Residues on medical equipment reveal that physicians in China over 600 years ago used aconitine, a highly toxic plant chemical, to alleviate pain during surgical procedures

Men who do not produce sperm can’t be helped by existing fertility treatments, but a start-up is now claiming it can grow their sperm in the lab. Columnist Michael Le Page suspects this technique will have to be combined with gene editing if it is to help many men

Airstrikes on Tehran earlier this year emitted a plume containing almost 30,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide that reached Asian countries

A rewrite of quantum mechanics that includes the force of gravity could finally achieve one of physicists’ biggest goals and reveal the ultimate fuzziness of time

Like covid-19 and mpox before it, the decision to relabel PCOS as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome is a welcome one – and reveals why a name is never just a name

There is currently no good way for astronauts in space to do laundry, but researchers may have finally come up with one: a bright purple jet of microbe-killing plasma

In the age of AI, instant answers to our questions are readily available. But columnist Helen Thomson finds that continuing to encourage those delicious flashes of insight that come from your own thoughts may be beneficial both for your everyday life and your long-term brain health

Experiments hint that quantum mechanisms are vital to the machinery of life. Now researchers are exploring if these effects help to explain the success of an array of puzzling health treatments

A decade ago, we discovered an exceptionally exciting exoplanet that could be the best candidate for hosting alien life. Now we’re about to find out if it really is

Some people experience vivid, incessant dreams that leave them feeling exhausted the next day, with researchers calling for this "epic dreaming" to be classed as a sleep disorder

When Richard Dawkins’s first blockbuster book was published half a century ago, few genes had ever been sequenced or studied in detail. Yet the book’s gene-centred view of evolution still has much to teach us in today’s genetic age

Women appear cognitively normal for almost three years longer than men after their brains start to develop Alzheimer’s disease, making it harder to diagnose and preventing early treatment

There’s unexpected news of a fifth movie for one of the most underrated sci-fi reboots. Hurray, says New Scientist film columnist Bethan Ackerley

Work, illness, divorce: life is riddled with stressors out of your control. But research is revealing new ways to cope with these challenges and find hope instead of despair

Despite being the closest planet to the sun, Mercury has thick deposits of ice at its poles, and now we may understand the events that formed them over just one Mercurian day

Tests with rodents suggest an mRNA vaccine in development offers protection against three strains of Ebola virus, including the one behind the current crisis

Artificial intelligence built by OpenAI has cracked a decades-old conjecture by Paul Erdős, which mathematicians have hailed as a monumental moment for AI in mathematics

Previously classified photos and documents show the scientific work that went into the world's first atomic test in 1945 – a test that, just weeks later, would see nuclear bombs dropped in Japan

We all feel emotions like anger and disgust from time to time, but they seem to cause stronger bodily sensations when they're politically induced

Vaccine misinformation, nurse and doctor shortages and crowded living arrangements may be behind soaring rates of diphtheria in remote Indigenous communities in Australia

On a visit to the UK, Sydney-based reporter James Woodford visited an archaeological site that was on his bucket list – and experienced a very special moment as the sun set

Life on the International Space Station may feel distant, but columnist Graham Lawton finds that studying how astronauts experience accelerated ageing could help us fight similar effects on Earth related to sedentary lifestyles, disrupted circadian rhythms and social isolation

Feedback goes down a "moon warfare" rabbit hole and discovers that some forward-thinkers are making plans to counteract as-yet-hypothetical pirates in space

Jennie Durant's Bitter Honey is a great exposé of the true cost of industrially farming US honeybees, finds Thomas Lewton. But the book's grim figures of bee death alone may not prompt deep change – how about seeing them as fellow creatures?

Women experience a steady rise in body temperature from their teens to midlife, which may be useful for monitoring ageing and overall health

Storing carbon dioxide in rocks while producing hydrogen from them - and perhaps even geothermal power too - could be a double win on the climate front, and several groups are trying to make it happen

Fifty years ago, a draft of Richard Dawkins’s first book landed on book editor Michael Rodgers’s desk – and life was never the same

Last year, The New Yorker revealed the late Sacks's "guilt" about his “falsification” in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, but is this story about more than just the facts?

Five different groups of predatory dinosaurs independently evolved disproportionately small arms, and it seems they did so because their heads became so large and powerful

A solar farm in a tidal bay has generated more electricity and profits than a nearby coastal solar farm, but challenges could arise as floating solar moves further offshore

If wind-assisted cargo ships chose routes based entirely on where the winds are better, their fuel use could be cut in half or even completely eliminated

Colossal Biosciences, the company that says it resurrected the dire wolf, now says it has developed artificial eggshells so it can replicate the huge eggs of the moa. Independent experts say this isn't nearly enough to bring back these giant birds

An exotic new molecule is shaped like a butterfly, complete with "wings" made from electrons. The discovery could provide a gateway to completely new parts of the quantum realm

Robots are becoming more a part of our lives every year, and worries about a robot army rising up have long plagued the technology. But columnist Annalee Newitz talks to nanobot researchers and finds out the real robot army could be a welcome solution to medical or environmental problems

In central Laos, the landscape is littered with enormous stone jars, some 3 metres high, and we may be closer to understanding how and when they were used

Maui in Hawaii experienced some of the worst wildfires in US history in 2023. Amid concerns of a PTSD epidemic, flotation tanks are being deployed to the island to help restore people's mental health

Scientists recently gathered for a conference called Love, Actually and in Theory, but didn't settle on a definition of the topic at hand

The floating ice shelf of world’s widest glacier – Thwaites glacier in Antarctica – is detaching, with worrying implications for global sea-level rise

Why have so many people become fixated on protein? Donald Layman is one of the people behind the research showing the benefits of getting more protein in your diet, but he thinks things have gone too far and wants to set the record straight

A little-known strain of Ebola virus is behind an ongoing health emergency, prompting researchers to call for the acceleration of vaccine candidates against such infections

We think of our body clock ticking over on a 24-hour cycle, but evidence is growing that it has seasonal rhythms, which could affect our response to vaccines

Inside some very special black holes, there may be a boundary called a Cauchy horizon. Columnist Leah Crane explores the place beyond which physics breaks and anything is possible

After a career spent grappling with the neural underpinnings of autism, Uta Frith is unwavering in her controversial call to scrap our current view of the condition and start again

We’ve long tried to control the weather by engineering rainfall. Now such cloud-seeding efforts are escalating, creating conflict between countries and stoking conspiracy theories. But do they work?

In Ladakh, Himalayan wolves are increasingly breeding with feral dogs, giving rise to a new animal known as khipshang that could injure humans and outcompete other carnivores

Why did humans decide they weren't like other animals, or animals at all? Has this exceptionalism twisted us out of shape? Michael Bond's book Animate offers a page-turning account of where we are now

The rules governing gravity and other laws of nature seem like eternal truths, but cosmologist João Magueijo has always questioned their origins. Now, he has a bold new proposal

Adding olivine to the ocean could remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and a pilot project in New York state found no signs of adverse effects on seafloor organisms

A record-breaking new version of Starship, due to launch within days, could form the basis of NASA's ambitious Artemis programme that aims to put humans back on the moon as soon as 2028

Global warming already threatens to destabilise the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and new research shows that regional clean-air policies could reduce its strength further

CAR T-cell therapy has been hugely successful in treating certain types of tumours, and stiffening up cancer cells beforehand could make it even more effective

Scientific disciplines often shy away from asking fundamental "what if" questions. But philosophy – if unencumbered by dogma or ideology – has much to offer evidence-based enquiry

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

People who imagine their self to reside in their head or their heart have different approaches to life. Columnist David Robson explores the benefits of learning to shift where you sense your self, and how this practice could improve your relationships and decision-making

Winner of an environmental photography award, this shot of a sea turtle seen under ultraviolet light shows how forensic evidence is being used to help catch poachers and animal traffickers

The creaky noise known as vocal fry that people generally associate with young women – and some find irritating – is actually more common in men

Partially burnt trees still standing after a wildfire are typically felled and burned, but a US start-up claims burying them instead will trap the carbon underground for centuries

Muscle stem cells, which are crucial for building new muscle, don’t work as well as we get older, but giving them an artificial boost could rejuvenate them

What use is a quantum computer? Perhaps both more and less than you think, according to quantum computing expert Shayan Majidy

Seismic surveys and sediment cores suggest that dozens of deep pockmarks on the sea floor were created when Arctic methane stores were disrupted by climate change after the last glacial maximum – and scientists warn it could happen again

Rowan Hooper met ecologist Suzanne Simard under an oak tree in Kew Gardens, London, to talk about her new book, criticism of her work, and getting a call from James Cameron's people

A Neanderthal tooth shows clear signs of human intervention to treat bacterial decay, showing that the earliest dentistry began at least 59,000 years ago

A study of soils around the Arctic and boreal forests has found that some wildfires are releasing carbon stored over millennia, meaning higher CO2 emissions than assumed

Asteroid 2026JH2 has enough mass to wipe out a city and will zoom past Earth next week

Six teeth roughly 400,000 years old have yielded some of the first ancient proteins thought to belong to Homo erectus, providing molecular clues to their relationships with other hominins

Genetically altered bacteria can synthesise gadusol, a naturally occurring compound found in zebrafish eggs that could be developed as an alternative to existing sunscreen products that can harm marine life

Government departments and other public bodies in the UK must consider requests to release information about AI-produced content, regulators have confirmed. The move follows a successful request by New Scientist for the release of a minister's ChatGPT logs

PCOS will now be known as PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome), and for Alice Klein, who has the condition, it's been a long time coming

The concept of a field plays a key role in particle physics, but what exactly is it? From its origins in the study of magnetism to the quantum fields of today, columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein goes exploring

Carbon credits bought by companies to offset their emissions really have reduced deforestation, but not by as much as credit developers claim, according to a rigorous analysis

Gases collected from boiling mineral springs in Zambia contain the chemical signature of having come directly from the Earth’s mantle, a sign of a rupture in the tectonic plates and the possible beginning of a new continental boundary

An analysis of ancient human artefacts finds that the container, a simple but critical tool, may have originated 500,000 years ago. Columnist Michael Marshall explores how slings, ostrich eggs and wooden trays helped our ancestors survive

A US start-up is putting autonomous data centres in the ocean, powered by wave energy, but experts warn that the harsh environment could make maintenance challenging

Genetic analysis of 1039 people buried in Britain between the Bronze Age and the Norman conquest highlights the impact of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings on the island’s ancestry

People often ask who might replace the nature broadcaster, who turns 100 this week. The truth is that he’s irreplaceable, but a wide range of voices are attempting to fill his shoes.

Red-light therapy promises to treat everything from acne and hair loss to depression and chronic pain. Many of these claims are overhyped, but evidence suggests it can have healing powers

Minuscule silicon wafers propelled by lasers could be used to steer light sails, helping them travel beyond the solar system

Creating quantum entanglement inside a solid material is tricky in the lab – but crystals buried in the earth could be growing it naturally. Now one scientist says he has proof he’s found them

Satellite measurements show that in the early 2010s sea level rise suddenly accelerated to a rate of 4.1 millimetres per year, possibly in response to an increase in the rate of global warming

If a key ocean current collapses it could plunge northern Europe into a big freeze. Now researchers are weighing up a drastic intervention – building a 130-kilometre-wide dam between the US and Russia

A long-overlooked writing system from 5000 years ago is still largely undeciphered, but could mark the moment humans first represented their speech with written words

An impression made in clay around 175,000 years ago could be a kneeprint left by one of the builders of a strange stalagmite circle found deep inside Bruniquel cave in south-west France

The US Department of Defense has released hundreds of documents and photographs related to UFOs, some of which have been declassified, in the first of many drops to come

Many flowering plants have duplicated genomes, which could have helped them evolve to deal with extreme stress in times of environmental upheaval

A drone has crashed in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, causing a fire that has spread to 12 square kilometres of land. Dry weather, strong winds and the presence of land mines are complicating efforts to bring the blaze under control

How important is thinking about your breath for calming yourself down? We now know that slow breathing is effective even without conscious involvement

Only 3 per cent of those with polycystic ovary syndrome reach perimenopause by the age of 46, which may allow them to conceive when older

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

A secret society of French mathematicians has been revolutionising the field of mathematics under a pseudonym for nearly a century. Columnist Jacob Aron finds that this mythic collective provided maths a rigorous and useful foundation, and did some real harm along the way

Eric Lusito crossed the former Soviet Union to explore vast scientific sites, some of which have been deserted for years, for his new book

The World Health Organization sought to quell worldwide fears over the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius and reassure the public that the risk of widespread transmission is low

A comprehensive study exploring coffee’s physiological effects finds that some of its benefits are down to polyphenols and their influence on gut bacteria

Solving society's problems with evidence is a work in progress, argues a must-read new book. The process is surprisingly new – and riddled with complexities, finds Michael Marshall

Three passengers on the cruise ship MV Hondius have died due to an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare illness transmitted by rodents

A guide to walking, a look at the world’s Google searches and a deep dive into the secrets of our DNA are some of the topics tackled by the popular science books out this month