If a key ocean current collapses it could plunge northern Europe into a big freeze. Now researchers are weighing up a drastic intervention – building a 130-kilometre-wide dam between the US and Russia
The ways in which Google can lock you into their ecosystem are often obvious, but sometimes, they’re incredibly sneaky and easily missed. CAPTCHA tests are annoying, but at the same time, they can help protect websites from bots.
With that context, I always found it strange that the designers of ASCII included 6 characters after uppercase Z before starting the lowercase letters. Then it hit me: we have 26 letters in the English alphabet, plus 6 additional characters before lowercase starts: 26 + 6 = 32.
Many Bourne shells go slightly beyond the POSIX sh specification to also support a ‘-l’ option that makes the shell act as a ‘login shell’. POSIX’s omission of -l isn’t only because it doesn’t really talk about login shells at all, it’s also because Unix has a special way of marking login shells that goes back very far in its history.
The US Department of Defense has released hundreds of documents and photographs related to UFOs, some of which have been declassified, in the first of many drops to come
Predictions of Putin’s demise have been wrong many times before, but something is happening in Russia now that deserves more attention.
Many flowering plants have duplicated genomes, which could have helped them evolve to deal with extreme stress in times of environmental upheaval
A drone has crashed in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, causing a fire that has spread to 12 square kilometres of land. Dry weather, strong winds and the presence of land mines are complicating efforts to bring the blaze under control
Early days yet, but let's take a punt anyway.
How important is thinking about your breath for calming yourself down? We now know that slow breathing is effective even without conscious involvement
Miles J. Breuer was born in Chicago on January 3, 1889, but the family moved to Crete, Nebraska when he was four years old so his father could attend medical school. He attended the University of Texas and went on to medical school at Rush Medical Center.
An impression made in clay around 175,000 years ago could be a kneeprint left by one of the builders of a strange stalagmite circle found deep inside Bruniquel cave in south-west France
A secret society of French mathematicians has been revolutionising the field of mathematics under a pseudonym for nearly a century. Columnist Jacob Aron finds that this mythic collective provided maths a rigorous and useful foundation, and did some real harm along the way
On the Fedora forums, there’s a long-running thread about a proposal for Fedora to build a variant of the distribution aimed specifically at “AI”. The “problem” identified in the proposal is that setting up the various parts that a developer in the “AI” space needs is currently quite difficult on Fedora, and as such, a bunch of technical steps need to be taken to make this easier.
In August 2025, we hailed the emergence of a second Chain Story project championed by Michael A. Stackpole. This is a Sword & Sorcery-focused, contagious set of connected (“chained”) stories. Each is: A standalone tale Readable in any order Free to read! Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown We round up groups every several weeks, but check the Chain Story website.
Another month, another progress report, Redox, etc. etc., you know the drill by now. This past month Redox saw improved booting on real hardware by making sure the boot process continues even if certain drivers fail or become blocked.
Time for another Sun Ray blog post! I’ve had a few people email me asking for help setting up a Sun Ray server over the last few months, and despite my attempts to help them get it going there’s been mixed results with running SRSS on OpenIndiana Hipster 2025.10.
If you’re sick of Chrome OS on your Chromebook, or can find a Chromebook for cheap somewhere but don’t actually want to use Chrome OS, have you considered postmarketOS? Since I was kind frustrated with ChromeOS, I decided to take a look at something that I knew supported my Lenovo Duet 3 for some time: postmarketOS.
The World Health Organization sought to quell worldwide fears over the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius and reassure the public that the risk of widespread transmission is low
Only 3 per cent of those with polycystic ovary syndrome reach perimenopause by the age of 46, which may allow them to conceive when older
A comprehensive study exploring coffee’s physiological effects finds that some of its benefits are down to polyphenols and their influence on gut bacteria
The Man With the Rubber Face reprints the entire series of stories starring John Cabot, the titular “man with the rubber face,” in his crusade against criminals. Written by H. Bedford-Jones, this series ran in Mystery magazine.
A guide to walking, a look at the world’s Google searches and a deep dive into the secrets of our DNA are some of the topics tackled by the popular science books out this month
A device made using a tiny bead floating in a beam of light can measure extremely small pressures and could help find a mysterious kind of neutrino
Dipping back into the Sword & Planet genre for the day, here’s one of the odder items I have. Bigfoot: Sword of the Earthman, subtitled as “The Galaxy’s Greatest Action-Adventure Hero.” As far as I can tell, Josh Henaman is the writer, with Andy Taylor (Penciller), Tamra Bonvillain (Colorist), and Adam Wollet (Letterer).
Research into dating has until now almost exclusively focused on younger people, but we’re finally beginning to investigate how romance changes in later life
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
Eric Lusito crossed the former Soviet Union to explore vast scientific sites, some of which have been deserted for years, for his new book
An analysis of 150 artefacts from a site in Wales shows that the ancient practice of making tools out of bone persisted even after the advent of metal-working
Solving society's problems with evidence is a work in progress, argues a must-read new book. The process is surprisingly new – and riddled with complexities, finds Michael Marshall
Feedback discovers that the prevailing themes of Eurovision songs may come and go, but the urge to win stays the same.
Red-light therapy promises to treat everything from acne and hair loss to depression and chronic pain. Many of these claims are overhyped, but evidence suggests it can have healing powers
At least 15 per cent of the Amazon has already been lost, and further destruction could unleash widespread rainforest dieback with as little as 1.5°C of global warming
If you liked this piece, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA, Anthropic and OpenAI&
I picked up The Fighting Heart of Man, Vol. 1, published by Veritas Entertainment. This small volume, 4- by 7-inches, has 11 stories by Nathanael Hummel and L.S. Goozdich. These stories are very short, sometimes being vignettes.
When the slope of a mountain above Tracy Arm fjord, in Alaska, gave way on 10 August 2025, 64 million cubic metres of rock fell into the fjord, causing a 5.4 magnitude seismic event
This 2013 book by an Indigenous botanist is a quietly urgent act of healing that forces Western science to look at the world in a different way
Prize-winning young writer Hasset Kifle, 17, explores how the world of super-competitive running is being transformed by so-called “super shoes” – and what cost this will have on the sport
Fossils reveal that there were at least two kinds of koala when humans first arrived in Australia, but one died out about 30,000 years ago when the west of the continent dried out
There is a persistent misconception among sighted developers: if an application runs in a terminal, it is inherently accessible. The logic assumes that because there are no graphics, no complex DOM, and no WebGL canvases, the content is just raw ASCII text that a screen reader can easily parse.
Backing up in modern times, we’ve had ZFS snapshots and replication to make this task extremely easy. However, you may not have access to another ZFS endpoint for replication, need to diversify risk by using a non-ZFS tool for backup, or are simply using UFS2, living the old skool life.
Robin Hood (Unrated Director’s Cut) (156 minutes; 2010) Written by Brian Helgeland. Directed by Ridley Scott. What is it? What it is, is a criminally underrated film. Maybe it would’ve been more successful if they had titled it Robin Hood Begins.
Creating quantum entanglement inside a solid material is tricky in the lab – but crystals buried in the earth could be growing it naturally. Now one scientist says he has proof he’s found them
NHS England is pulling its open-source software from the internet because of fears around computer-hacking AI models like Mythos. Opposition is growing among those who say the move is bad for transparency and efficiency, and will also do nothing to improve security
Three people have died on board the cruise ship MV Hondius due to an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare illness transmitted by rodents
Three passengers on the cruise ship MV Hondius have died due to an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare illness transmitted by rodents
A biopsy of a woman's cancer seems to have triggered an immune response against the tumour, putting her into remission
One of the best-performing models in cosmology is also one with the least physical rationale behind it. Columnist Leah Crane says this leaves us with a puzzle that could make or break physics as we know it
Doug Whitney has a genetic mutation that means he should have developed Alzheimer’s disease decades ago, but his long-term work in hot engine rooms may have protected him in a similar way to sauna therapy
Doug Whitney has a genetic mutation that means he should have developed Alzheimer’s disease decades ago, but his long-term work in hot engine rooms may have protected him in a similar way to sauna therapy
Two quantum computers and two supercomputers teamed up to break the record on the biggest molecule yet to be simulated using quantum hardware
Earlier this year, Mac OS and Windows NT-capable ROMs were discovered for Apple’s unique AIX Network Server. Cameron Kaiser has since spent more time digging into just how capable these ROMs are, and has published another one of his detailed stories about his efforts.
With Windows being as old and long-running as it is, there’s a ton of old and outdated bits and pieces lurking in every nook and cranny. I have always found these old relics fascinating, especially now that over the past few years, Microsoft has attempted to replace some of those bits and pieces with modern replacements (not always to great success, but that’s another story).
Watch the complete talk and discussion here
It is appealing to think something as simple as honey could cure a cold or prevent hay fever, but is there evidence to back up honey’s health benefits? Columnist Alice Klein finds that it has legitimate medicinal uses, depending on the type of honey you’ve got
A long-overlooked writing system from 5000 years ago is still largely undeciphered, but could mark the moment humans first represented their speech with written words
A 500-kilometre-wide object in a similar orbit to Pluto challenges our assumptions about small bodies in the outer solar system
Everyone, it’s time to talk about AI demand and the capacity constraint issues across the industry.
These constraints are not a result of “incredible demand” for AI, but the desperation of hyperscalers and the avariciousness of two near-trillion-dollar failsons living off their parents’ welfare.
On Black Friday weekend 2025, Steeger Books put out their next sets of Argosy Library volumes, Series XVIII and XIX, getting closer to 200 volumes. As always, with each series, we get 10 books of great and sometimes overlooked fiction that appeared in the early pulps.
An update to an experiment run by Henry Cavendish in 1773 could be a cheaper and faster way to spot a potential dark matter particle – and may be 10,000 times more sensitive
To mark David Attenborough turning 100, New Scientist staff have been set a tricky task: pick your favourite of his many amazing documentaries...
A small trial found that chewing gum containing nitrate can ease the symptoms of gum disease by favouring the growth of beneficial mouth bacteria
It’s been over a month since I shared a Ten Things? Heavens to Murgatroyd (any Snagglepuss fans out there?). I talked here about how fed I up I was with all the streaming apps which I needed to watch different things.
A device you attach to your underwear reveals how often you really break wind – and it’s probably more frequently than you think
Joe Abercrombie in 20 Years:
One observation that blows my mind – The Blade Itself is now twice as old as A Game of Thrones was when The Blade Itself came out. GRRM felt like a long established pillar of the genre to me at that point. Truly I must be part of the fantasy furniture at this one…
That you are, Joe. That you are.
Just this weekend I was visiting a fantasy and science fiction book store with my seven year old son, with whom I'm currently reading Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. As we stumbled upon the First Law books, I told him ‘just wait until you're old enough to read these ones, you'll have a blast’.
I guess The Blade Itself was about 10 years old when I read it. In another decade, he'll be the one reading it.
While I’m normally a KDE user, I do keep close tabs on various other desktop environments, and install and set them up every now and then to see how they’re fairing, what improvements they’ve made, and ultimately, if my preference for KDE is still warranted.
To assess how small a macOS VM could be, I ran the same VM of macOS 26.4.1 on progressively smaller CPU core and memory allocations, using my virtualiser Viable. The VM’s display window was set to a standard 1600 x 1000, and I ran Safari through its paces and performed some lightweight everyday tasks, including Storage analysis in Settings.
So it was, but it is said that in recompense Mandos gave to Beren and to Lúthien thereafter a long span of life and joy, and they wandered knowing thirst nor cold in the fair land of Beleriand, and no mortal Man thereafter spoke to Beren or his spouse.
A veritable cornucopia of dodgy barbarian and barbarian-adjacent movies that I have never watched before, and will probably never watch again. Deathstalker (1983) – USA/Argentina Inspired by a recent foray into the Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus, I suddenly had a hankering for more of the same, and so here we are.
I mentioned in a recent note that I've been tinkering with the front page setup for a while. The previous iteration of the front page had been mostly identical since I relaunched the blog in late 2023. It showed recent posts and recent notes.
Since then, I've added a couple of content sections to the website. I add books to my reading log several times per month. The workout log is updated daily. The result is that the front page wasn't really reflecting the entirety of the activities that happen on this website. As new visitors tend to drop by the home page, I think it's a good idea to use that page to give them an idea of what's happening on this website.
To that end, I've tried several times the last year to find a way to incorporate updates from the reading and workout logs into the front page. Unsuccessfully! I've created and discarded at least five different mock-ups. Common for all of them is that I've begun with the approach of trying to lift the design elements from the two logs into the front page. As I'm happy with how both sections look, that felt like the natural approach.
The drawback is that every single time I tried this approach, the overall feel of the front page was disjointed. It came off as something haphazardly thrown together. When I tried once more to tackle this challenge the other day, the outcome was the same. But at that point, a lightbulb went off.
‘I don't have to bring the design elements from the logs to the front page. I can just bring the data from the logs and present them in the same way I do the other front page elements!’
The template was essentially already in place. Posts and notes are distinct types of content, and were already presented as such. Doing the same with two more types of content shouldn't be an issue. So I gave it a go. And, to my surprise, it worked just fine. It's not revolutionary or anything out of the ordinary. But that wasn't what I was aiming for. I just wanted to preserve the look and feel of the home page, while also showing the breadth of content I share on the site. And I think I achieved just that.
To spruce it up a little, I decided to reuse the icons from the workout log on the workout log entries. With that little visual in place, it was a short order to just reuse miniature versions of the book covers from the books I'm reading to add a little bit of colour there as well.
One unexpected result is that the posts and notes entries feel a bit flat by comparison without any visuals. But, as I want to err on avoiding anything akin to Apple's icons in menus everywhere, I think I'll leave it as it is for now.
While make some changes to the front page (I finally found a way to include the content I wanted!) I accidentally copied the settings file from my ‘dev’ directory to my actual website directory. The dev version only has a placeholder URL and site name in the settings.
Now I've gotten a reminder where I use those settings.
In addition to the header, the feeds rely on these. When I regenerated the site with the placeholder values in the settings file, every old post in the feeds were given a new URL and unique ID. This would result in your feed reader thinking these old posts were new posts. And a dead link to these posts.
Will try not to do that again! ^_^
Watched Train Dreams tonight.
Wow!
Another great film. Loved the quiet contemplation of it. The perseverance in the face on unbearable grief. Speaking of, I was, presumably like the protagonist, hoping that it didn't happen. That they simply moved on from the scorched earth, to start anew somewhere.
I still am.
U.S. strategy under strain abroad—and democratic renewal in Europe
The second half of this year will almost certainly see the start of an El Niño phase that could lead to extreme heat across much of the globe, and James Hansen expects that to make this year surpass 2024 as the hottest on record
In 2025, writer-artist Mike Mignola did an original hardcover graphic novel, Bowling With Corpses and Other Strange Tales From Lands Unknown. Not set in the “Hellboy Universe,” this was a collection of short stories written and drawn by Mignola, set in “Lands Unknown,” a new dark fantasy setting of his.
National Health Service rules state that all software created with public money should be publicly available, but fears of computer-hacking AI models like Mythos have prompted a change in policy
Should you really be drinking eight glasses of water a day? What about reaching for a sports drink after exercise? Physiologist Tamara Hew-Butler is here to bust these hydration myths and more.
Some science fiction authors like to cloak their histories in mystery, not content to keep the fiction in their writing. Lester Del Rey claimed he was born Ramon Felipe Alvarez-del Rey and that his family was killed in a car crash, although his sister confirms his birth name was Leonard Knapp and the accident only killed his first wife.
An infestation of caterpillars can make an oak tree postpone when it opens its leaves next year by three days, wrong-footing the insects when they attack again
With progress at COP climate meetings stalling, 57 countries took part in the first of a new series of conferences aiming to develop roadmaps away from fossil fuels, but big emitters like China and the US were absent
Silvia Park, author of the May read for the New Scientist Book Club, reveals how a book that was originally intended to be for children took a darker route following a death in the family
In this extract from Luminous, the May read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet a mysterious robot discovered in a salvage yard in Seoul, in a future reunified Korea
Uranus’s outermost two rings are surprisingly dissimilar, which opens up a mystery about the tiny moons and moonlets that form them
