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When Robert F Kennedy Jr announced that the US would stop recommending covid-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnancies, he bypassed standard protocols and set the stage for future vaccine rollbacks

New mathematical work provides a way to identify when information has been changed by manipulating space-time – and it may form a foundation for future space-time computers

Across many cultures, both men and women rate female faces as more attractive, and women exhibit this preference even more strongly than men

Knowing someone's position on a contentious topic can allow you to predict their views in other areas, thanks to an artificial intelligence that maps patterns between beliefs

An attempt to become the third successful private landing on the moon has ended in failure, as ispace's Resilience probe crashed due to a malfunctioning laser sensor

Dark stars were first suggested in 2007, but now observations with the James Webb Space Telescope hint that we may have actually found some of these unusual cosmic objects

June’s sci-fi hot tips feature a sleep-killing neural chip from Laura Elliott, plus Will Carver's vision of a world where a virus makes us kinder

Artist Clare Hewitt uses fallen oak leaves and sunlight to create her works of art before returning the leaves to the forest

Understanding the meaning of "equals" in mathematics tells us a lot about both the nuance and richness in the field, but also how ideas of equality are used or misused in life

Taurine supplements have previously been found to extend the lifespan of monkeys and mice, but a new study in humans shows that the amino acid doesn’t decline with age

Metallic nanoparticles injected into the retina partly restored vision in blind mice and could work as a treatment for conditions that damage light-sensitive cells in the eye

Thousands of tiny nematode worms can join up to form tentacle-like towers that can straddle large gaps or hitch rides on larger animals

Nuclear fusion power will probably require vast quantities of enriched lithium – but we aren’t making nearly enough, and ramping up production will mean using toxic mercury

Two brain regions seem to work together to determine whether we are seeing something real, or merely a product of our imaginations - and understanding them further may help treat visual hallucinations

In this latest instalment of Future Chronicles, an imagined history of future inventions, we journey to 2035, when undersea living became a reality. Rowan Hooper tells us how it happened

As our ancestors developed more advanced tools and cultural practices, they also developed new ways of explaining concepts to others – culminating in the emergence of complex language

Feedback is amazed to see sperm racing touted as a new track sport, but it’s going to take a lot of CGI and other fakery to help it take off

Being accurate in the language we use to describe conditions like ADHD matters, and can lead to better outcomes for those affected. The words we choose to use are important, say Alex Conner and James Brown, hosts of podcast The ADHD Adults

Computer simulations of high-energy particles are pushing the boundaries of what we can learn about the interactions that happen inside particle colliders

A 500-page proof that only a handful of people in the world claim to understand kicked off a saga unlike anything else in the history of mathematics – and now there’s a new twist to the story, says Jacob Aron

A new book on quantum physics is pleasingly full of cutting-edge topics. Yet it isn't the accessible work it promised to be

Despite reports of a recent surge in ADHD, a global analysis has found no reliable evidence of an increase in the number of children diagnosed with the condition since 2020

Thanks to AI and modern carbon dating techniques, we have a new understanding of when the Dead Sea Scrolls were written – which could revise the story of Judea

Putting an end to a mass extinction sounds like an impossible task, but some researchers argue that doing so would be setting our ambitions too low

Carbon stored in landscapes for thousands of years is leaching back into the atmosphere via rivers, and human activity may be to blame

Scientists have found a way to boost the brain's system to clear waste from the organ in mice, which could open treatment possibilities for neurodegenerative diseases

Most widely used adhesives are toxic and derived from petroleum, but researchers have come up with a safe, recyclable alternative made from xylan, a component of plant cell walls

AI may be limited by a lack of taste, touch and smell which prevents it from fully understanding concepts in the same way as humans - suggesting that more advanced models may need to have a robot body

Surprising new fossil evidence undermines the idea that there was ever a mass extinction on land – and may force us to reframe the current biodiversity crisis

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are waiting in line at public drinking fountains in Sydney to have their daily drinks of water in the latest example of cultural evolution in urban birds

When an RSV vaccine became available for use during pregnancy, it offered a natural experiment between various countries to see how it compared to a one-time antibody injection

Widespread proposed budget cuts have left the US space agency facing an uncertain future at the same time as NASA’s intended new leader has been withdrawn by the Trump administration

The Hubble constant, a set number that connects a galaxy’s speed to its distance from Earth and tells us how fast the universe is expanding, was first described more than a hundred years ago – but astronomers have debated it ever since

If successful, Resilience will be only the third private spacecraft to complete a landing on the moon, and the first operated by a non-US company

Two of the most destructive invasive termite species are interbreeding in the US – they can survive a wider range of temperatures and could easily spread across the globe

Why do we follow rules? A series of experiments with more than 14,000 people reveals that around a quarter of us will follow rules unconditionally, even if obeying them harms us and there is no downside to breaking them

As warmer waters and ocean acidification reduce coral formation, the seas will take up more carbon dioxide – an effect that hasn't been included in climate models

Microwaves can control a single quantum bit more precisely than ever before, creating a device similar to a quantum transistor – and potentially making quantum computers more reliable

Mining craters on the moon could be more practical than extracting precious metals from asteroids, but it might also introduce new legal difficulties

When dogs given spot treatments for fleas go swimming, they release levels of pesticides dangerous to aquatic life for at least a month after the treatment

Researchers have proposed a more accurate way to calculate the global surface air temperature, which suggests we are just three years away from breaching the 1.5°C climate goal

Manifestation is easy to dismiss as unscientific nonsense. Certain techniques used in the practice, though, do work — just not in the magical way some people think, as neuroscientist Sabina Brennan elucidates

The vividness of your mind’s eye isn't fixed - and training it up is the secret tool of top athletes and businesspeople. Here’s how you can help develop yours

The belief that adding certain plants around crops will boost their growth is an old one, but will your tomatoes' yield and flavour really be improved by growing tasty herbs alongside them? James Wong investigates

The worlds inside our heads can be dramatically different. What does that reveal about how our minds shape our lives, asks cognitive neurologist Adam Zeman

Your imagination isn't just one thing. The latest neuroscience is untangling just how diverse this faculty really is, says cognitive neurologist Adam Zeman

Murderbot fans will be thrilled to learn that the cyborg security unit that gains free will by hacking its governor module is now the star of a compelling adaptation. Bethan Ackerley has unexpectedly joined their ranks

It’s natural to associate wild flights of fantasy with children and a more mundane internal world with adult life. The latest research, though, shows that isn't the whole picture

Researchers have developed algorithms that reconstruct a hidden image from the scrambled light waves that bounce off a wall, making it possible to see things behind a corner

The carbon dioxide removal industry is struggling to grow at the pace needed to have a significant role in meeting climate targets

Artificial intelligence has removed many of the barriers to understanding a new language, but there are still good reasons to do things the old-fashioned way

Most 9/11 first responders experienced improvement in PTSD symptoms about 10 years after the traumatic event, but approximately 10 per cent saw symptoms worsen even two decades later

Millions of women and teenage girls use oral contraception, but we are only now getting an idea of what effect these drugs have on our brains

Antioxidants like cocoa flavanols may benefit heart health, brain ageing and the microbiome. Columnist Alexandra Thompson investigates whether it’s time to rethink chocolate

Culture editor Alison Flood rounds up the New Scientist Book Club’s thoughts on our latest read, the science fiction classic Ringworld by Larry Niven

In this short extract from Kaliane Bradley's sci-fi novel, her protagonist makes a startling discovery about the nature of time

The Ministry of Time author Kaliane Bradley on how she made time travel work in her bestselling novel, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club

The village of Cocullo celebrates a festa dei serpari every May – and scientists are getting in on the action

Philip Marsden's book Under a Metal Sky is an engrossing look at how we have excavated key metals and rocks over the millennia. It's a story shot through with awe, power, greed and hubris

Tiny bone fragments from Alaska suggest birds started breeding and nesting in the Arctic 30 million years earlier than previously thought

The history books say Europeans brought leprosy to the Americas, but analysis of ancient DNA reveals that a form of the disease was present in Argentina and Canada much earlier

New AI models from tech giants are set to revolutionise weather prediction. But as our climate becomes more extreme, we need to ensure broad public access to their forecasts, says Annalee Newitz

The failure of SpaceX’s ninth Starship launch has raised fresh concerns about the future of the rocket, but is there any alternative to Elon Musk’s approach to space?

Villagers in Blatten, Switzerland, were evacuated earlier this month after authorities warned a nearby glacier was on the brink of collapse – one of many becoming less stable as global temperature rise

City-sized droplets and twisting streams of plasma have been picked up by incredibly detailed images of the sun’s corona, showing our star as we’ve never seen it before

Feedback was surprised to learn that the late, great queen of crime fiction is presenting a creative writing course, and wonders if there aren't enough living authors around to impart their wisdom

Quantum computers that correct their own errors usually require hundreds of thousands of qubits. Start-up Nord Quantique claims it can dramatically decrease that number – but many challenges remain

We need to learn the lessons from an ingenious piece of research done in Sweden and radically change policies around interpersonal violence, says Jens Ludwig

Helen Ball's How Babies Sleep draws on anthropology and biology to help babies (and their parents) get a better night's sleep. It has some fascinating insights, but is somewhat impractical

A network of trenches, walls and enclosures built across the steppes of China and Mongolia 800 years ago seems to have been erected to control the flow of people, perhaps for tax reasons

For the first time, we have a method for extracting proteins from preserved soft tissues like brains – which could be a treasure trove of evolutionary information

Understanding the neurological systems that produce the world inside your head can help you to harness its transformative power

Whether or not we have partial free will could soon be resolved by experiments in quantum physics, with potential consequences for everything from religion to quantum computers

Thousands of fossils from the La Brea tar pits in California show no signs of mammals and birds evolving in response to shifting temperatures over the past 50,000 years

Want to roll an armadillo when you play Dungeons & Dragons, instead of standard dice? Now you can, thanks to a technique for mapping the probabilities produced by any shape

Life is thought to have begun when RNA began replicating itself, and researchers have got close to achieving this in the lab

Imagination isn’t mere childhood whimsy – harnessing its extraordinary capacities can benefit us all

There have never been so many satellites orbiting Earth as there are today, thanks in part to the launch of mega constellations like SpaceX's Starlink internet service - and now we are learning just how the sun's activity can affect them

2024 was the first single year to surpass the 1.5°C global warming threshold – now scientists predict that a year above 2°C is possible in the near future

Weather forecasts based on AI are faster and sometimes more accurate than traditional ones, but they may miss rare and unprecedented weather events – which are becoming more common as the climate changes

A skeleton found in London records a brutal killing about 1200 years ago, thought to be a rare example of a judicial execution of a woman in medieval England

More than 60 ancient tools found in France and Spain have been identified as whale bone, and the evidence shows that people made tools from this material a thousand years earlier than previously thought

The chance of a planet forming in the outer reaches of the solar system – a hypothetical Planet Nine – could be as high as 40 per cent, but it would have been a rough start

The pace of ageing accelerates as you get older, and it is linked to an individual's sex, ethnicity and level of education, according to studies of US and UK populations

The idea of a multiverse of universes is derived from a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, but now a new twist on a classic experiment says it is time to put the idea to bed

Banking a baby’s umbilical cord blood was once seen as a reasonable way to protect their future health, but much of that potential has turned out to be mere hype

Captured carbon dioxide could be injected deep in the Earth to dissolve rocks, freeing up nickel and other key metals vital for batteries

Results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggest that dark energy, a mysterious force in the universe, is changing over time. This would completely re-write our understanding of the cosmos - but now other physicists are challenging this view

The globe is criss-crossed by unused fibre-optic cables. Now, researchers are using them to defend against earthquakes and produce an unprecedented map of the underground world

Should you mow the lawn first or cut the hedge? Mathematics will help you decide what to tackle first, says Peter Rowlett

A declining ability to detect scents is linked to conditions including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. But restoring our most neglected sense might not only reduce cognitive decline – studies also show it could even reverse it

Today’s chemistry is a wet business, mostly done by mixing compounds in liquid solvents. But a push towards using dry powders instead is proving surprisingly effective

The premise of Grace Chan’s debut novel – that you can choose to upload yourself to a virtual reality – might sound dated, but this is a stunning big‑picture look at what might lie ahead for us, says Emily H. Wilson

The unusual orbit of a possible dwarf planet, known as 2017 OF201, makes it less likely that our solar system contains a hidden ninth “Planet X”

US President Trump has proposed a Golden Dome defence system that includes missile interceptors in space. But the idea would cost hundreds of billions of dollars – and could accelerate the weaponisation of space

A quantum computer with a million qubits would be able to crack the vital RSA encryption algorithm, and while such machines don't yet exist, that estimate could still fall further

Many people are worried about the health effects of ultra-processed foods and microplastics, but could these two issues actually be linked?

Puzzlingly, many birds add human-made material to their nests with no obvious function – now there is evidence that these home improvements might ward off predators

Women seem to be judged as being more moral than men, which could mean they have further to fall if they don't meet societal expectations

Wildlife carers fostering some of Australia’s most precious animals have had to rescue them one by one from rising waters and are now racing to repair fencing that keeps feral predators away