An instrument on the Perseverance rover has identified large, complex carbon compounds alongside unusual patterns on the surface of rocks that resemble traces of microbial activity
The Broken Sword (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #24, January 1971). Cover by George Barr Read Part One and Part Two of this article here at Black Gate. The Broken Sword is arguably the best book Anderson ever wrote, and it was the “first” novel length fantasy he published.
We have developed genetic technologies that could wipe out entire species of pests that are harmful to us. Columnist Michael Le Page says the flesh-eating screwworm is the most likely first target
Feedback isn't sure what to make of a ground-breaking piece of research into the understudied topic of "subjective individual variability in onion tearing and its relationship to chemosensory sensitivity"
The first six months of the year have brought us popular science reads on everything from consciousness to cosmology. Liz Else rounds up her favourites
An analysis of tooth proteins suggests all 23 Homo naledi individuals found in the Rising Star cave in South Africa were female, which strengthens the case that they were placed there deliberately
Jessica Atkin knows more than anyone else about what it would take to supply food for a moon base. She reveals how to build a lunar farm and what astronauts can expect to dine on
Genetic analysis of Neanderthals in north-western Europe reveals that this population was surprisingly genetically diverse, hinting that inbreeding didn’t lead to the species' demise
Oestrogen levels fluctuate throughout a woman's menstrual cycle, which may impact how efficiently a drug that targets the brain can reach its destination
There is a strand of thought out there that believes any and all legislation to do with seeds is evil and unnecesary.
The area surrounding our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole contains three strangely different populations of stars – but one hidden black hole could explain all of them
A study claims that the North Pole Dome crater in Western Australia was caused by an asteroid strike 3 billion years ago, but other researchers dispute the proposed age
Every little thing in a graphical user interface that we take for granted today, no matter how small, was thought up by someone, at some point. Case in point: the little red squiggly lines underneath misspelled words.
I’ve had my share of issues with network shares on any operating system, but since I mostly use KDE these days I found this deep dive into how, exactly, network shares work in KDE quite interesting.
Fans can make you hotter rather than cooler, but the temperature at which you should turn them off depends on several factors, including your age and the humidity level
A cave in Belize contains teeth from dozens of important Maya people buried elsewhere, which may attest to a ritual intended to ensure their passage to the underworld
Raising children appears to keep the brain young, potentially acting as a buffer against cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s
Not much is known about Starfall, SpaceX's new delivery system, but an assessment published in May revealed its intended purpose
A trip to Chicago last week left me feeling nostalgic but also inspired to do more about the future.
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Around a third of people are able to almost fully rebuild their brains after a stroke and uncovering why is pointing the way to better treatments for everyone
A gene therapy that instructs cells to produce more of an anti-ageing protein called klotho is about to be offered by a US company at overseas clinics to bypass FDA rules
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I’m here to do something angsty, teenage me would be horrified by – defending “bad” entertainment. You know the ones – bad movies that are just a fun time to sit through, even if the only thing they have going for them is epic fight choreography, pulpy books with lead characters whose names are alliterations, and who rock their way through the pages with naught but their wry grins and cheesy one-liners.
Almost exactly 10 years from the referendum, Brexit is what makes this country ungovernable
The developer working on Xfwl4, the Wayland compositor for Xfce, has published the new compositor’s very first alpha release. Considering it’s only been six months or so of work, it’s impressive to see the effort reach this state already.
A woman with severe Alzheimer's disease who hadn't spoken more than monosyllables in years began initiating conversation after a single dose of psilocybin
Valve officially made the Steam Machine available (sort of but not really) today, and if you were hoping for the president of the Yacht Collectors’ Club to have found a loophole through the RAM and storage crisis, I’ll be the bearer of bad news: the base Steam Machine model with 512GB of storage and no controller costs $1049 or €1039.
A spider living in the rainforests of Queensland, Australia, builds a snare trap reminiscent of a Roman-era ballista weapon that it uses to catapult green tree ants into a web 30 centimetres above
The brain undergoes a full renovation during menopause. Although these changes are profound, we’re learning that the long-term impact needn’t be all bad
Researchers say a surgery that let pigs with completely severed spinal cords walk again may lead to human trials, and then perhaps even full head or brain transplants. Columnist Helen Thomson is intrigued but sceptical of whether the technique can be successful in humans
Several start-ups have tried to grow seaweed to remove atmospheric CO2, but this could affect the levels of nutrients in the ocean and hamper other CO2-sucking processes
When does your brain reach adulthood? We're now understanding the many ways the organ continues to mature decades after society first deems you an adult
Just prior to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, we got the annual issue of Blood ‘n’ Thunder: the Blood ‘n’ Thunder 2026 Special Edition, from Ed Hulse’s Murania Press. This is the sixth such annual edition, going back to 2021, but this fanzine goes back 24 years.
The next generation of AI models are meant to be trained by people paid to have conversations with them, but several of these workers have admitted to New Scientist that they simply get chatbots to do it instead.
A graceful and dignified end to a bitterly disappointing premiership.
“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” — Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep 1990 was quite the year for hardboiled and Noir on the big screen.
In macOS, you can apparently create files and directories in the Finder with names that include slashes. If you then go into the terminal and take a look with ls, you’ll see that the slashes are actually colons.
Apple’s Swift has become the de-facto language for Apple’s own developers for a while now, and it seems that with the new operating system releases from the company unveiled during WWDC, Switch is now also being used in the kernel.
Every website has a favicon. It’s that little icon in your browser tab. Usually you upload it once and then never think about it again. But. A favicon is just an image. An image is just pixels. And pixels are just bytes.
Co-owner of the distinguished British publishing house Tartarus Press, editor, author and music composer RB Russell has collected in one hefty volume most of his short stories. The book includes tales of very different type and content, which have in common one feature: good quality.
When I began reading science fiction in the early 70’s, a handful of writers stood taller than any others, at least judging by the bookshelves at the thrift store around the corner from my middle school, where I spent my lunch money every day on used sf paperbacks.
A little while ago I decided that paying micro.blog to host my, er, micro blog was probably a better bet for my mental health than continuing to plug away at my self-hosted idno (aka WithKnown).
Starting an unnecessary war was imprudent. Losing it is Trump’s greatest foreign policy failure so far.
The two main outcomes of Trump's disaster in Iran: a collapse in the US-Israel relationship and a confirmation of Iranian control of Hormuz
I mean, this is preaching to the choir, but let’s go anyway. I liked the UIs of the entire era from 3.0 to 2000, really. I’m mostly using Windows 2000 as an example here because it runs so well in QEMU/KVM and that allows me to easily take screenshots.
Older mice that received a faecal microbiome transplant from younger animals went on to have improved brain plasticity, which suggests their brains could overcome a neurological condition that is typically successfully treated only in childhood
Something is absorbing light on the surfaces of Pluto and Saturn’s moon Titan, and figuring out what it is could be crucial to understanding Titan’s complex chemistry
Efficiency ratings on portable air conditioners don’t give consumers the full picture, and one type of aircon unit is so inefficient that it should be banned, says Michael Le Page
Carbon monoxide in Uranus's deep atmosphere indicates that the planet contains more ice than rock, suggesting it formed more like Neptune than we thought
A fascinating novel approach by researchers at MIT, called Fractal, to study in-depth how processors actually work. A team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) decided to build something different.
A kind cyberchum alerted me to some mobile display issues, initially with my podcast website and then this site.
Roman Frederick Starzl, who wrote as R.F. Starzl was born in Le Mars, Iowa on December 10, 1899 to John V.N. Starzl and Margaret (née Theisen). His grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1895, along with their five children, including Starzl’s father. While the family settled in Le Mars, Iowa, John moved to Chicago, where he owned a pharmacy.
The disruption of your gut microbiome is a major consequence, and possible cause, of ageing. Columnist Graham Lawton looks into recent trials examining whether it can be replenished through diet and prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics
Andy Burnham is now certain to be the next prime minister
Five years after releasing the Amiga 1000, Commodore was about to launch the Amiga 3000, their first real high-end Amiga. With a 68030 processor, on-board SCSI and a slightly updated graphics chipset, all in a sleek desktop case, the Amiga was truly ready for the era of professional 32-bit computing.
Palaeontologists have found new evidence that the early ancestors of amphibians, reptiles and mammals did not have a larval stage with external gills like modern frogs or salamanders
An extremely unusual tectonic movement took place 15 minutes after the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, causing almost the whole of Japan to move 5 millimetres to the east
An extremely unusual tectonic movement took place 15 minutes after the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, causing almost the whole of Japan to move 5 millimetres to the east
Ever hear of the legend of Top Shelf Books? Gene Wolfe did! I first heard about the legendary Top Shelf Books from four people who had frequented that mythical venue. However, they were not together when they mentioned the place, and the interval between tellings was years and across many locations.
Beautifully written, this guide to distinguishing between truth, misinformation and lies, first published in 1995, remains an essential read for anyone who considers themselves a critical thinker, says Leah Crane
As the sun expands over the coming billions of years, Earth will become inhospitable to any life more complex than a microbe – but that might take longer than we thought
Oracle is sticking to its promise of more regular Solaris updates with the release of Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU93. This release, like other SRU releases, is for paying Solaris customers, as the CBE releases for enthusiasts are on a different cadence.
Archaeologists have discovered traces of a wooden structure built 5000 years ago, 5 kilometres from Stonehenge, which appears to have been an even older monument for marking the summer solstice
Archaeologists have discovered traces of a wooden structure built 5000 years ago, 5 kilometres from Stonehenge, which appears to have been an even older monument for marking the summer solstice
We already know the vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, greatly reduces infections and cases of cervical cancer, and now we have the first evidence it prevents deaths too
We already know the vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, greatly reduces infections and cases of cervical cancer, and now we have the first evidence it prevents deaths too
Yesterday, Google released Android 17 to Pixel devices, so late last night I updated my Pixel 10 Pro with the intent to write a news item about the release today. The reality is that that I totally forgot I even upgraded last night, because Android 17 is about the biggest nothingburger I’ve ever seen.
The Ace Flandry editions by Poul Anderson: Ensign Flandry, Agent of the Terran Empire, and Flandry of Terra (Ace Books, February 1979, January 1980, July 1979). Covers by Michael Whelan Read Part One of this article here.
Putting brain cells into a hibernation-like state via drugs that cool down core body temperature may help to preserve them following a stroke
Feedback is delighted to explore research digging into the relationship between a reptile's body mass and the length of its Wikipedia entry – but would like to throw Godzilla into the mix
Sarah O'Connor's We Are Not Machines explores how we are contorting ourselves to fit AI into our working lives – and what to do about it, finds Tom Knowles
DNA evidence shows that plague bacteria devastated a community in Siberia more than 5000 years ago, challenging the idea that there were no major disease outbreaks before the advent of farming and large settlements
Bird-mounted headsets and backpacks have revealed the surprising things pigeons do with their eyes when on the wing
By the time we’re born, our brains have all the hardware in place to form thoughts, and possibly even some conscious awareness
By the time we’re born, our brains have all the hardware in place to form thoughts, and possibly even some conscious awareness
A study of 140,000 people suggests that a broadening of the diagnostic criteria for autism and ADHD explains the sharp rise in diagnoses, but that doesn't mean too many people are being told they are autistic or have ADHD
I have posted before on William Preston’s series of stories featuring his pastiche/homage to Doc Savage: The Old Man. This series is made up of five short stories that appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction from 2010 to 2024.
What does it say, how will it work, and what happens next?
This week we kick off an occasional new series of reviews of the Parker crime novels by Richard Stark. If you know Parker, you understand. If you aren’t familiar with him, trust me: You are in for a treat.
The KDE team released KDE Plasma 6.7 today, and with it comes a long list of improvements, new features, bug fixes, new old themes, and so much more. A new feature that is sure to please those among us who use virtual desktops: you can now have different virtual desktop setups per display.
A week or so ago, Apple announced a bunch of features for the App Store on iOS, including personalised recommendations based on your activity and usage of iOS. It turns out this includes a keylogger (taplogger?) in the App Store, which records every single tap you make, every single letter you enter, and a lot of other information.
Neurologist Emily Rogalski studies "superagers" – people in their 80s or 90s with unusually keen memories, whose lifestyles suggest ways to slow cognitive decline
Defying the laws of thermodynamics, experiments are beginning to show that a quantum state that is frozen forever might not be impossible. If we can tame it, it could unlock whole new types of matter
Another story from the good old days from Raymond Chen. During an exchange of war stories, a colleague of mine told one from back in the days when Windows included a processor emulator for x86-32 on systems that natively ran some other processor.
Speaking of FreeBSD, the project released version 15.1 of their operating system today. As it’s a point release, it’s not full of massive changes, but it still brings the LinuxKPI-based wireless drivers up to Linux 7.0, support for the C23 version of the C has progressed considerably, Unicode has bene updated to version 17.0.0 and CLDR 48, and more.
It all started a few weeks ago when I noticed an unexpected spike in the number of pages that could not be found on my website. For a few days I let it ride in the hope that it would resolve itself.
Expect to see more and more articles like this one, as more and more people discover that FreeBSD’s desktop/laptop support keeps improving rapidly. FreeBSD 15 really feels like a breakthrough release.
Hemiscyllium dudgeonae is the tenth recorded species of walking shark, which use their pectoral fins to move across reef flats, and its limited range means it may be at high risk of extinction
Evidence is mounting that there are distinct subtypes of autism, and now, scientists have found that the condition can vary according to the strength of people's brain connections
Disappearing sea ice is letting more sunlight in the Arctic Ocean and boosting phytoplankton growth, but this has depleted a crucial nutrient, which could severely affect animals higher up the food chain
Inspired by Ariel Waldman’s docuseries Life Unearthed, columnist Annalee Newitz explores how microscopes, drones and specialised cameras are giving us an unprecedented view of nature from many different vantage points
Soundtrack: In Flames - Colony
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