Were these the first people to reach space? Heritage Image Partnership Ltd /Alamy If you were to take off from Earth on a clear day – the kind you want for a launch – you’d see the sky change colours before your eyes. It would shine a bright blue outside your window, becoming deeper as…
Representation of the electrons in the “half-Möbius”-shaped molecule IBM Research and the University of Manchester Chemists have discovered a new molecular shape, and it is twice as odd as the twisty Möbius strip. The Möbius strip is a looped band with a twist, such that something tiny, such as an ant, would have to go…
Magic mushrooms are one of the psychedelics showing real medical potential John Moore/Getty Images A single dose of psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – produces rapid reductions in symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to the first placebo-controlled trial to test the psychedelic for the mental health condition. The effects also seem…
A pygmy long-fingered possum Carlos Bocos Two marsupial species that scientists thought had gone extinct at least 6000 years ago have been found alive on the island of New Guinea. The ring-tailed glider and pygmy long-fingered possum, previously known to science only from fossils found in Australia, have now been found and photographed in the…
Amyloid plaques in the brain are a defining feature of Alzheimer’s disease, but what if the roots of the condition start elsewhere in the body? Alamy Alzheimer’s disease has long been viewed as something that originates inside the brain, but an in-depth genomic analysis suggests it may initially be triggered by inflammation in distant organs…
Falling cats seem to twist the front half of their body first Evolve/Photoshot/ZUMAPRESS/Alamy When falling cats turn themselves the right way up before they hit the ground, they have a secret trick: a region of their spine that is exceptional at twisting. “We compared the flexibility of the thoracic spine and lumbar spine in cats,…
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 A shedload of bears Following the use of golden retrievers as a unit of ice mass, Feedback has found our inbox filling up with more…
How can we spot if someone is lying to us? There are no easy tells Margarita Young/Alamy Poisonous PeopleLeanne ten BrinkeSimon & Schuster It seems only fitting that a book about dark personalities opens with the case study of a psychopath. But the author’s choice isn’t who you might have been expecting. Instead of a…
Live action video game LANDER 23 Punchdrunk Controls jam, data streams go haywire, smoke pours from every vent. Your Lander 23 spaceship has crashed in hostile territory. You must explore a treacherous world, refuel and return home. Radiation levels are high, time is short and something lurks outside… If this sounds like a review of…
Alistair Berg/Getty Images Let’s start off with a fact: you do not, no matter what you’ve heard, eat a credit card’s worth of microplastics each week. At least, not in the course of a normal human diet. But this popular claim has raised alarm, especially as it has been followed by a flurry of studies…