An analysis of the afterglow of the big bang sheds light on how black holes distribute mass in the universe, and why some matter previously seemed to have been missing ...

Can you escape your genetic inheritance, and do lifestyle changes actually make a difference? Daniel Cossins set out to understand what the evidence on Alzheimer’s really means for him ...

Planets orbiting dead stars known as white dwarfs might be able to remain habitable thanks to general relativity subtly altering their motion. When stars like our sun run out of fuel, they expand and ...

Some conservation groups are calling for an effective ban on genetic modification, but others say these technologies are crucial for preserving biodiversity ...

It has been 110 years since Endurance, often described as the strongest wooden ship ever built, sank after becoming trapped in sea ice near Antarctica. But a reassessment of the evidence reveals that ...

The 2025 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has gone to Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for their discoveries around how we keep our immune system under control ...

Scientists are beginning to understand the sudden loss of sea ice in Antarctica – and there is growing evidence that it represents a permanent shift with potentially catastrophic consequences ...

Several species of birds from different continents use and understand similar alarm calls when they see an invader that might lay an egg in their nest – this shared call hints at the origin of languag ...

Scientific evidence is lacking to support the US government’s decisions to caution against using a common painkiller in pregnancy and fast-track the approval of an experimental medication for autism ...

Black holes are so strange that physicists have long wondered if they are quite what they seem. Now we are set to find out if they are instead gravastars, fuzzballs or something else entirely ...

The New Scientist Book Club has just finished reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Most of our members enjoyed it, even if the sheer volume of ideas in the book made it a challenging read ...