AI could be used to make the toxin ricin, but this can also be obtained from castor beans, found in many gardens American Photo Archive/Alamy Artificial intelligence promises to transform biology, allowing us to design better drugs, vaccines and even synthetic organisms for, say, eating waste plastic. But some fear it could also be used…
Melting ice sheets in Antarctica will raise sea levels DurkTalsma/Getty Images Antarctica may have passed a climate tipping point of no return, scientists are warning, with mounting evidence that a sudden slump in sea ice formation since 2016 is linked to human-induced ocean warming. For decades, Antarctic sea ice levels remained relatively stable despite rising…
Artist’s impression of Cha 1107-7626, a rogue planet about 620 light years away ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser A ravenous rogue planet has been caught eating 6 billion tonnes of gas and dust per second. This behaviour blurs the line between planets and stars, suggesting both can form in similar ways. Rogue planets, free-floating balls of gas…
Jane Goodall transformed our understanding of chimps Europa Press Reportajes/Europa Press/Avalon Jane Goodall, who has died aged 91, changed the world through the way she saw animals, particularly chimps. In 1960, when she was 26, she observed a chimp she had named David Greybeard fishing for termites with a twig he had stripped of leaves.…
Learning to play an instrument is a cognitive pursuit, as well as a creative one Andrew Fox/Alamy Music training seems to boost reading skills in young children by enhancing their ability to recognise and manipulate the sounds that make up words. Learning to play an instrument has long been linked to improved early reading abilities,…
Josie Ford Feedback is New Scientist’s popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com What’s in a squeak? Feedback’s experience of mice is sadly confined to the dead ones (or, sometimes, barely alive ones) that one of our felines…
“Before the war on drugs in the 1970s, there was a range of promising research into therapeutic psychedelics” Adrià Voltà In the early 1950s, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, Graham Greene and many other leading figures from science, philosophy, culture and politics were featured in plans for a gathering – dubbed “Outsight” – where they would…
Merlin D. Tuttle These endearing photos of bats are a far cry from how these animals are often perceived – linked to fictional evildoers, or blamed for real-life diseases, most recently covid-19, due to the viruses they harbour. But the mammals deserve far more sympathy and attention, argues ecologist Yossi Yovel, based at Tel Aviv…
The menstrual cycle and other aspects of women’s health have long been understudied Romy Arroyo Fernandez/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Period BrainSarah Hill Vermilion (UK); Harvest (US) When I lived with my parents, my mother said she could always tell when my period was approaching: I raided the snack cupboard a little more frequently and…
“B mesons can help us solve a big mystery of the universe: why there is more matter than antimatter” sakkmesterke/Alamy Did you know that, in physics, we have beauty factories? This has nothing to do with art or glamour. Instead, I am talking about experiments where electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, are collided together…