A lineworker repairs a power line in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in South Carolina Artie Walker Jr./AP Photo/Alamy When Hurricane Helene hit the south-eastern US in September 2024, almost 5 million homes and businesses across Florida, South Carolina and Georgia were plunged into darkness. Some residents were without power for weeks. Such widespread blackouts…
20 hours ago Tom Gerken Technology reporter Getty Images Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has written a letter to Google asking the firm to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico. US President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring the body of water – which is bordered by the US, Cuba and Mexico…
Creatine, a popular supplement among bodybuilders, is often taken as a pill FlowFocusPhoto/Shutterstock A daily dose of creatine alongside talking therapy seems to ease depression, with minimal side effects. Creatine is a compound that is naturally produced by our bodies and is found in protein-rich animal products. It helps to supply energy to cells, so…
23 hours ago Paweena Ninbut and Jiraporn Sricham of BBC Thai and Flora Drury Reporting fromBangkok and London BBC The five farm workers were taken hostage in October 2023 Five Thai farm workers who were abducted during the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel have been released after being held for almost 500 days…
Fire scars on a giant sequoia tree in California David McNew/Getty Images Scars on trees left by fires hundreds of years ago are helping scientists understand past wildfire trends across North America and giving clues to how blazes might unfold with further climate change. Fire scars are small wounds made when fires burn near trees…
An adult Eurasian Lynx wonderful-Earth.net/Alamy For the past couple of years, I have had the pleasure of hosting New Scientist‘s rewilding weekender at Coombeshead, a farm in Devon, UK, that is being magnificently returned to nature. At the end of this two-day trip for paying guests, we hold a straw poll on which large mammal…
Josie Ford Nuke the climate We all know that climate change is dangerous, which means it can be tempting to take drastic measures to tackle it. Such as building a nuclear bomb orders of magnitude bigger than any to date and setting it off deep under the seabed. News reporter Alex Wilkins drew Feedback’s attention…
Adrià Voltà While researching Starbound, my new book on the realities of interstellar travel, I was often surprised by the bizarre, over-the-top spacecraft designs that scientists have proposed in well-regarded academic journals. The best-known of these is Project Orion (1957-1965), whose central idea was to propel an interstellar spacecraft by detonating a series of thermonuclear…
What does this monkey make of the image in the car mirror? peters99/Getty Images The Moral CircleJeff Sebo (W. W. Norton US: on sale; UK: March) Should chimpanzees have rights? What about elephants? Or ants? Or microorganisms? And how about artificial intelligence? These questions are at the heart of The Moral Circle: Who matters, what matters,…
We adorn the neck with jewels and perfumes, and it plays a key role in human courtship rituals Martin Parr/Magnum Photos The NeckKent Dunlap (University of California Press) The late writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron famously felt bad about her neck. Ephron’s concern, as expressed in her best-known essay I Feel Bad About My Neck,…