Many mushroom species produce the psychoactive compound psilocybin YARphotographer/Shutterstock Magic mushrooms have been giving humans mind-altering experiences for thousands of years, but the real reason fungi evolved these hallucinogenic chemicals may have been as a bioweapon against insects that feed on them. Psilocybin is the active ingredient in numerous species of magic mushrooms, which are…
Treponema pallidum bacteria cause diseases including syphilis Science Photo Library / Alamy Traces of a bacterium related to syphilis have been found in a bone from a person who lived in the mountains of Colombia over 5000 years ago. The discovery shows that this group of corkscrew-shaped bacteria was infecting humans thousands of years earlier…
Oral bacteria (blue) on human cheek cells (yellow) shown in a scanning electron micrograph STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Some people with obesity have a distinct oral microbiome signature – a discovery that could lead to a way to spot the condition early and potentially prevent it. The huge community of microbes that resides in the…
Procoptodon goliah was 2 metres tall, but it might have hopped MICHAEL LONG/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Even the giant kangaroos that roamed Australia thousands of years ago might have been able to hop, according to a new analysis of bones. Some of the kangaroos living during the Pleistocene were more than twice as heavy as those…
A yellow baboon stands watch Frederic Noy/Panos Pictures A young yellow baboon (above) looks out over the Udzungwa Mountains National Park in Tanzania. The Udzungwa mountains are covered by very rich rainforests, but their remoteness means the area was relatively unexplored by biologists until recently. There are six species of primate living in the park,…
Why does it feel so lonely online these days? Breana Panaguiton/Unsplash Right now, I’m glued to my phone. Like most people in the US, I get my news from various apps – social posts, podcasts, newsletters – and when things are blowing up (literally) I can’t look away. People in Minneapolis are posting video updates…
Rule-based cooking is very appealing because it produces highly replicable results FG Trade/Getty Images The ScoreC. Thi NguyenAllen Lane THIS time last year, I wrote an article for New Scientist about the perfect way to cook the classic pasta dish cacio e pepe, according to physicists. The meal’s smooth, glossy emulsion of black pepper, pecorino…
Stephan Walter In 2005, physicists David Frame and Myles Allen were on their way to a scientific conference in Exeter, UK, and had been, in Frame’s words, “fiddling about” with a climate model to prepare for their presentation. At the time, most research focused on stabilising the number of greenhouse gas molecules in the atmosphere…
Stephan Walter You have probably heard the parable of the blind men and the elephant. One feels the trunk and says it’s a snake, another feels a leg and claims it’s a tree. It warns of how focusing on single parts can obscure the whole. Neuroscience made the same mistake for decades, viewing the brain…
New Scientist’s guide to the 21 best ideas of the 21st century | New Scientist Close Close