Baby KJ after a gene-editing infusion with researchers Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Kiran Musunuru Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia A baby boy with a life-threatening genetic condition has become the first person to receive a bespoke CRISPR gene-editing treatment, giving a glimpse into what the future of medicine might look like. It’s the first time anyone has…
Cutting onions can be a tearful experience Foster.r/Getty Images If you find yourself crying when chopping onions, physicists have found a possible solution – but professional chefs probably aren’t going to like it. When onions are cut open, they spray a mixture of sulphur-rich compounds into the air, one of which is syn-propanethial-S-oxide, a chemical…
What are we learning from the genomes of chimps and other apes? S.Tuengler/inafrica.de/Alamy This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. One of the most vexing unsolved problems in human evolution is its starting point – about which we…
House builders in England are required to create benefits for nature Shutterstock / Jevanto Productions Housing developers in England are failing to deliver biodiversity measures required under their planning conditions, with developments routinely missing the woodland planting, wildflower grasslands, hedgehog highways and bat boxes promised by firms. Since last year, housing developers are required to…
Suspended Grace: A sleeping sperm whale and her calf Paul Nicklen With a full belly – look closely and you can see the tentacles of the deep-sea squid she has just feasted on, dangling from her mouth – this mother sperm whale sleeps, her calf nearby. This photograph, named Suspended Grace, was taken by photographer…
A Succinea snail that has been infected by a zombifying parasite shutterstock/JoostP Rise of the Zombie BugsMindy Weisberger (Johns Hopkins University Press) A snail, eyestalks pulsing with coloured stripes, leaves the safety of the shade and oozes its way onto an exposed leaf, where it catches the beady eye of a bird. The larger animal…
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Alamy In 1998, astronomers made a startling announcement. Space-time, the unified phenomenon that comprises our universe and that was previously understood to be expanding, was actually not just growing, but growing faster and faster as time went on. In other words, its expansion was accelerating. This was the birth of the cosmic…
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 Hot! Hot! Hot! Saturday 17 May will see the final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which will be the most over-the-top evening of television…
Simone Rotella The UK government’s proposed AI-powered crime prediction tool, designed to flag individuals deemed “high risk” for future violence based on personal data like mental health history and addiction, marks a provocative new frontier. Elsewhere, Argentina’s new Artifical Intelligence Unit for Security intends to use machine learning for crime prediction and real-time surveillance. In…
The division of human cells may not exactly align with what’s written in textbooks Iokanan VFX Studios/Shutterstock Scientists have discovered a kind of division that allows cells to use the information encoded in their shape to direct what kinds of cells their offspring become. This could help us develop ways of engineering tissues and deepen…