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From acquaintances to besties, our relationships fall on a wide continuum. Research into the ingredients for meaningful and lasting connections can help you strengthen them

There is mounting evidence that even surprisingly simple animals, like invertebrates, have a level of consciousness - but not in the way you might think

Concepts like the “growth mindset” are much misunderstood. But learn to cultivate certain beliefs about your future potential, and evidence suggests it really can foster success and bring health benefits

Packed with puzzles and narrative threads, Matt Wixey's novel Basilisk is an exhilarating read that is hard to put down

Quantum computers have been hyped as machines that can solve almost any problem. Yet it is becoming clearer that their near-term utility will be narrower

A flexible fabric called X-Wear could replace some parts of medical scanners, which would make taking X-rays and CT scans far more comfortable and convenient

With the help of powerful computers, researchers discovered a four-sided shape that naturally rests on one side, and built a real-life version from carbon fibre and tungsten

Conditions in our little pocket of the universe seem to be just right for life - and the much-debated anthropic principle forces us to wonder why

All of us hold metaphysical beliefs, whether we realise it or not. Learning to question them is spurring progress on some of the hardest questions in physics

Large sea anchors could be used to drag water under a bold plan to keep the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation moving – but some experts are sceptical

Geologists have long debated whether a stony formation in Canada contains the world’s oldest rocks – new measurements make a compelling case that it does

Culture editor Alison Flood rounds up the New Scientist Book Club's take on our latest read, a time-travelling romance

In this passage from near the opening of Lake of Darkness, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are given an insight into how deep-space travel works in Adam Roberts’s universe

The author of Lake of Darkness, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, on why, in a world awash with fictional dystopias, he set out to write the opposite

This shot by the acclaimed photographer, taken from a helicopter, is part of a new exhibition of his work at New York City's International Center of Photography

Natural history museums teach us about our world, but they aren’t telling us the whole story, writes curator Jack Ashby in Nature's Memory

There have been hundreds of reports of sightings of a “fireball” in the skies over the southern US – it may have been a meteor breaking up as it falls through Earth’s atmosphere

DNA sequencing shows young trees are more likely to have gene variants that confer partial resistance to a fungus that has been wiping out ash trees across Europe

After a nap, people who entered the second stage of sleep were more likely to spot a solution to a problem than those who slept lightly or not at all

With their country threatened by sea level rise, the people of Tuvalu have been offered an escape route through an agreement with Australia, and many are contemplating leaving their home

The recent erratic behaviour of the polar jet stream isn't out of the ordinary, researchers have found by compiling data from the past 125 years

It is uncanny how human fears about robots mirror those about immigrants. But maybe they aren't out to take our jobs or destroy us all, says Annalee Newitz

Helping yourself get to sleep isn’t just about avoiding screens before bedtime. From cognitive shuffling to sleep-restriction therapy, columnist Helen Thomson finds out what actually works

A study into a spider species in which the females are prone to eat the males after sex is welcomed into Feedback's new collection of self-evident scientific studies

The public is tuning out the seemingly slow warming of the world, but it doesn't have to be that way, argue Grace Liu and Rachit Dubey

Neurologist Pria Anand recounts curious tales of the workings of the human mind in an elegant debut that is being compared to the late, great Oliver Sacks

A study based on household surveys suggests that from October 2023 to January 2025, around 75,000 people in Gaza died violent deaths, while Gaza's health ministry estimates 46,000 for the same period

A boomerang discovered in a Polish cave was originally dated as 18,000 years old, but it may have been contaminated by preservation materials. A new estimate suggests the mammoth-ivory artefact is 40,000 years old

Weight-loss surgery seems to lower the risk of colorectal cancer by changing where bile acids enter the small intestine, raising the possibility of developing treatments that mimic these effects

Mice created using genetic material from two sperm cells have gone on to have offspring off their own, but the prospect of one day using the technique in humans has potential to cause controversy

Cancer cells can acquire energy-generating structures called mitochondria from nearby nerve cells, which seems to aid their spread, a discovery that could lead to new treatments

Since 1970, heart attack deaths have fallen almost 90 per cent in the US, though deaths from chronic heart conditions have significantly risen

Adults and AI models fail to recognise messages with harmful intent expressed with Gen Alpha slang or memes, raising concerns about youngsters’ online safety

Enigmacursor darted around North America in the Late Jurassic 145-150 million years ago and its skeleton now be on display in London’s Natural History Museum

The night lizards may have been the only terrestrial vertebrates that survived in the region of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, which led to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs

Over the past 150 years, the rise in Caesarean sections and changes in diet could have led to smaller pelvises among women – which may make vaginal birth more difficult but could also reduce common conditions associated with childbirth

A simulation of the "aerial screw" designed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1480 suggests it would use less power than modern drone rotors to generate the same lift, and make less noise too

Our climate seems to be more sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than some researchers had hoped, meaning the world will have to up its decarbonisation efforts

A high-speed crash between two dwarf galaxies might explain a unique feature in space – and provide useful information on dark matter

Humans established a wild population of brown forest wallabies in the Raja Ampat Islands thousands of years ago for their meat and fur in one of the earliest known species translocations

Geoengineering comes in many forms and the risks and potential benefits vary widely. But many researchers now feel it’s time to investigate this controversial idea

From four-dimensional hexagons to the mind-bending amplituhedron, geometrical shapes are wilder than we learn at school - and they are a crucial tool for understanding reality

We're a step closer to two men being able to have genetic children of their own after the creation of fertile mice by putting two sperm cells in an empty egg

In just 10 hours of observing the night sky, the powerful new telescope detected more than 2000 new asteroids, including a few that will pass near Earth

Drone footage has captured killer whales breaking off stalks of kelp and rubbing the pieces on other orcas, a rare case of tool use in marine animals

Astronomers have been trying to detect atmospheres on planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, but bursts of radiation from the star make this challenging

There’s an argument rumbling about why our ancestors evolved language. And surprisingly, one of the possible explanations has nothing to do with communication

The huge market for stolen smartphones means that thieves will continue to snatch them, but is there anything we can do to put a stop to this crime wave?

A powerful new telescope in Chile is set to transform astronomy, and its first pictures of stellar nurseries and galaxies have just been unveiled

Scary dreams disrupt our sleep and elevate our levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which may have serious consequences for our health over time

Milky Way viewing is at its best right now, especially if you’re in the southern hemisphere. Here's what to look out for, says Abigail Beall

There are hundreds of TV apocalypses to choose from, but The Eternaut, a fresh and compelling adaptation of a classic Argentinian comic book series, is the one to pick, says Bethan Ackerley

Sea spiders living near deep-sea methane seeps appear to cultivate and eat bacteria on their exoskeletons

Astronomers are puzzled by a strong burst of radio waves traced back to a NASA satellite that had been inactive since the 1960s

Attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities have already triggered at least one internal radiation leak, but should we be concerned that Israeli bombing could cause a larger nuclear accident?

Technology reporter Matthew Sparkes thought his passwords and personal data were safe, but a tour of the murkier sides of the internet revealed otherwise

We’ve known for nearly a century that UV radiation is linked to skin cancer, but modern advice about sunburn can be confusing. To understand what works, you need to know what UV really does to your skin

This photo series capturing efforts to save the Chinook salmon of the Klamath river in the western US won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo 2025 competition

Agatha Christie's murder mysteries are made all the more compelling by the author's personal expertise, reveals Kathryn Harkup's new book V is for Venom

Unlike other primates, humans are exposed to high levels of placental sex hormones in the womb, which may have shaped our evolutionary brain development

A newly identified brain circuit in mice may explain why we sleep longer and deeper after being sleep deprived – and lead to new treatments for sleep conditions

Treating types of cancer with CAR T-cell therapy is expensive and inconvenient, but a streamlined approach that creates the therapy within the body could make the intervention cheaper and easier

Trees would have to be planted on a vast proportion of global land mass to offset the carbon dioxide emissions from burning the world’s fossil fuel reserves

From spiders to scorpions, some 1000 different invertebrate species are traded globally as pets. This is bad for biodiversity – but there is an upside, says Graham Lawton

Rocks in some parts of the UK have the potential to produce natural hydrogen, but it remains unclear whether the gas is present in economically viable quantities

A skull from China has been identified as Denisovan using molecular evidence – so ancient humans once known solely from their DNA finally have a face

The herpes virus that commonly causes cold sores affects how tightly coiled our DNA is and makes it shrink, all to help itself grow

The "immersive entertainment" boom takes user-centred experiences to new heights, but isn't it making culture a little insular, asks Arwa Haider

Recovering "revenge addict" James Kimmel Jr. makes the case for retaliation to be understood as an addiction in new book The Science of Revenge. It's compelling, but doesn't quite add up

Restricting calories has been linked to living longer in many studies, and now it seems that the drug rapamycin has nearly the same effect, at least in animals

The infected are back, over two decades since they first appeared in 2002's 28 Days Later — and this film is the best of the three, says film columnist Simon Ings

Knee osteoarthritis is often treated via non-drug therapies, and now we have an idea of which ones work best

Tech CEOs and politicians alike are preparing for the day that superintelligent AI takes over, whilst failing to deal with the issues in front of them – from copyright to autonomous killing machines

Bogong moths are the first invertebrates known to navigate using the night sky during annual migrations to highland caves

Ticks are spreading globally and bringing familiar conditions such as Lyme disease with them, as well as totally new ones. Now research is revealing how to prevent and treat the diseases they carry

Assigning certain sizes, shapes and positions of bubbles to characters within Morse and binary codes means messages could be stored in ice

Even if agricultural practices adapt in response to higher temperatures, five of the world's six main staple crops will suffer severe losses due to climate change

Earth is no longer at risk of a direct collision with the asteroid 2024 YR4, but an impact on the moon in 2032 could send debris hurtling towards our planet that could take out orbiting satellites

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is releasing its first images on 23 June, showing us galaxies as we’ve never seen them before. Here’s how you can join a party to see those shots in full definition

Meteorologists say that in the next decade, summer daytime temperatures above 28°C could persist for more than a month, with spikes as high as 46.6°C possible under today’s climate conditions

The discovery of a prehistoric tail-shedding reptile reveals more about large lizard life and lineage during the Late Cretaceous Epoch

Sea star larvae have been stored at -200°C and thawed for the first time, a step towards restoring populations that have been ravaged by disease

Injecting aerosols into the atmosphere – but at higher altitudes than planes can reach – could cool the climate while avoiding some of the downsides of lower-altitude solar geoengineering

A UK biotech firm spent years gathering genetic data that has uncovered 1 million previously unknown microbial species and billions of newly identified genes – but even this trove of data may not be enough to train an AI biologist

We might not think we remember something, but attempting to recall it still fires up activity in our brain linked to memory, which seems to direct our behaviours

The workings of the small intestine have long been a mystery, but now we are discovering the hidden roles this organ plays in appetite, metabolism and the microbiome – and how to look after it better

According to scientific legend, quantum mechanics was born on the island of Helgoland in 1925. A hundred years later, physicists are still debating the true nature of this strange theory - and recently returned to the island to discuss its future

A gaggle of companies are searching the US Midwest for underground hydrogen fuel produced by a billion-year-old split in the continent – New Scientist visited one of the first to start drilling

Using machine learning to analyse data from the Event Horizon Telescope, researchers found the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is spinning almost as fast as possible

There are new hints that the fabric of space-time may be made of "memory cells" that record the whole history of the universe. If true, it could explain the nature of dark matter and much more

The Proba-3 mission, consisting of two spacecraft that fly in close formation to study the sun, has returned images of the first ever artificial solar eclipse

A new understanding of how tumours exploit our nervous system is leading to new ways to treat cancer using familiar drugs like Botox and beta blockers

Recent research delves into our issues with "seasonal body image dissatisfaction", says David Robson, who has advice on how to combat it during the summer months

If you struggle with small talk or find it hard to express yourself, research by psychologist Alison Wood Brooks and others will help you master the art of conversation

He was a minor king, yet Tutankhamun’s tomb might have been the most richly stocked of all in ancient Egypt. Now research is revealing the surprising reasons why he was given such a lavish send-off

In Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time, a young woman must help a naval commander snatched from death in 1847 adapt to the 21st century. Time travel thriller meets romance in this excellent novel

Amidst an ongoing outbreak of a deadly bird flu virus in livestock, the US Department of Agriculture is doing more to prevent the spread than public health agencies are

A ‘ghost plume’ identified deep in the mantle beneath Oman suggests there may be more heat flowing out of Earth’s core than previously thought

Putting unusually large atoms in a box with cold copper sides helped researchers control them for an unprecedented 50 minutes at room-temperature, an improvement necessary for building more powerful quantum computers and simulators

There appears to be a volcano near Jezero crater on Mars and the Perseverance rover might already have samples from it that we could use to precisely date the activity of another planet's volcano for the first time