Have you bought and set up a new phone for someone else lately, especially someone less technologically savvy? It’s a bit of a nightmare, with an endless list of confusing steps and dark patterns trying to trick you into signing up for all kinds of services.
The fall of tyrants must always be celebrated. The hard part is what comes next.
Microsoft is pushing “AI” hard in Windows, Office, and in their other products, and it’s earned them a cute new nickname: Microslop. It turns out the company really doesn’t like it when you use this nickname, however, and its official Copilot Discord server – yes, there is an official one – has gone into a complete meltdown over people using the nickname.
Physicists are scrambling to understand why dark energy is weakening. In a surprising twist, we must now reconsider the possibility that our reality contains extra dimensions
Last year, our most detailed map of the universe yet suggested our understanding of dark energy has been wrong for decades. The shock result is reigniting the search for a better cosmic story
Black holes that turn matter into energy could explain dark energy and answer two other cosmic questions. Now, the challenge is to find them
This is a New Scientist special package about shock results that have upended cosmology. What do they mean for our models of the universe, and what are the alternative explanations?
When I was reading the recent work by Marcos Legaria on Robert Barlow, The Man Who Collected Lovecraft, I read of an incident when the young Barlow had a dealing with another young fan that went sour. And I learned that a book about this fan’s life had been published by one of his sons, […]
Putting silicate rocks from mine waste on fields could improve crops and limit global warming, but some researchers question where all that rock is going to come from
If you’re following KDE Plasma development, you’ve most likely run into something called Union, a project KDE is working on to unify their various ways of theming their applications. The problem KDE is facing right now is that after so many decades of development and changes in how people want to develop applications, they ended up with various different ways of writing applications, each with their own theming method.
Fungus-farming ants have evolved a remarkable solution to the danger of excess carbon dioxide inside their nests – which could inspire ways for humans to capture CO2
The most comprehensive study to date has revealed what we need to eat throughout the day to sleep well that night
The latest in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series is out this month, along with a speculative retelling of Moby-Dick and a forgotten classic from 1936
Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk have become geek icons. A Knight’s Tale, Castle, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Resident Alien, The Rookie: they’ve built successful careers over the years. Their real-life friendship, and their nerdy idol status, tracks back to Firefly.
Cables underneath New York City are teeming with entangled quantum particles of light thanks to Qunnect, a company that has spent a decade working on building an unhackable quantum internet
Magnesium has been called the “super mineral of the moment”, hailed for its supposed benefits for the brain and body. But columnist Alice Klein finds that the evidence is lacking for many of these claims
I had no idea, but apparently, you can just use newline characters and tabs in URLs without any issues. Notice how it reports an error if there is a tab or newline character, but continues anyway? The specification says that A validation error does not mean that the parser terminates and it encourages systems to report errors somewhere.
If there is one group of people that deserve more praise in the literary community, it’s translators. Recent years have shown us just how vital they are to our bookshelves and TBR lists. Its them we have to thank for every Roadside Picnic and Eternaut that dares to tantalize English speakers the world over.
I'll be out early on Monday morning
Are you not at all interested in upgrading to macOS Tahoe, and getting annoyed at the relentless notification spam from Apple trying to trick you into upgrading? The secret? Using device management profiles, which let you enforce policies on Macs in your organization, even if that “organization” is one Mac on your desk.
If this isn’t catnip to the average OSNews reader, I don’t know what is. Windows 95 is a comprehensive upgrade to the Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 products. Many changes have been made in almost every area of Windows, with the user interface being no exception.
Bootc and OSTree represent a new way of thinking about Linux system deployment and management. Building on container and versioning concepts, they offer robust and modern solutions to meet the current needs of administrators and developers.
Tom’s Crossing (Pantheon, October 28, 2025) Every now and then I reach for a copy of Anna Karenina on my TBR bookshelf, but hesitate to wonder, “Do I really have time to get into this kind of heavy reading of some 800 plus pages right now?” So far, the answer has been, “No.” I really do intend to get to it at some point because, well, it’s Anna Karenina.
What I knew about Sinners before watching it:
Things in Sinners I didn't like:
What a movie. Score is absolutely spectacular.
It's not often I buy new stuff. Just compare my tech stack from December 2025 to what it looked like in December 2024.
Today, though, I made the leap and acquired a new piece of gear!
I bought the Airpods Pro shortly after they were released, in 2020. I've been rocking them since. They've been solid, and well worth the outlay. Except for the microphones, which have been useless for years. That means they're pretty useless in a office setting.
I do have an old pair of Bose QC25, but the cable went years ago and the cheap Bluetooth adapter I bought a few years ago doesn't have enough juice to last through a medium duration meeting. The end result is that I've been using no headphones at all for a few years. That's not really a big issue when I'm at the home office and there's nobody else in the house. When I'm in an open office landscape, though, it's impractical and impacts my ability to concentrate.
As a result, I've been thinking about acquiring a new pair of headphones for years. Throughout this period I've at various times thought about getting a new pair of Airpods Pro, a pair of regular Airpods, the Airpods Max, considered at least a couple of options from Bose, something from Jabra and, most recently, the Nothing Headphone (1).
When I finally decided to pull the trigger, I ended up with the Sony WH-1000XM5:
Being a previous generation product, the price was alright; well under half of what a pair of the MX6 would've cost me. Looking forward to giving these a proper spin the next few weeks, at home and in the office.
The file system of the Windows operating system is NTFS, whether you’re running it on a desktop/laptop or server. It’s the only file system Windows can run on and boot from, at least officially, so you’re not even given a choice of file systems for the boot volume like you are on, say, desktop Linux.
Encryption backdoors, social media bans for children, creepy age verification for applications – what will they think of next? The latest brilliant idea by US lawmakers sure is a hell of a doozy: legally mandated age verification in every single operating system.
FreeBSD has its jails technology, and it seems NetBSD might be getting something similar soon. Jails for NetBSD aims to bring lightweight, kernel-enforced isolation to NetBSD. The system is intended to remain fully NetBSD-native.
A recording from Michael McFaul's live video
Join me for a discussion as we mark four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
We have a global intelligence crisis, in that a lot of people are being really fucking stupid.
As I discussed in this week’s free piece, alleged financial analyst Citrini Research put out a truly awful screed called the “2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” — a slop-filled scare-fiction
As it faces yet another set of delays, NASA’s Artemis programme is being shaken up, delaying an actual moon landing in favour of smaller, faster steps forward
Frailty can typically only be lessened through lifestyle changes, but a stem cell therapy seems to target the underlying causes of the condition, boosting the mobility of frail older people
Neuron-powered computer chips can now be easily programmed to play a first-person shooter game, bringing biological computers a step closer to useful applications
Pouring 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine removed up to 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without harming wildlife, according to the researchers behind an ocean alkalinity enhancement test
Sterner St. Paul Meek was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 8, 1894. He earned as associate of science degree from the University of Chicago in 1914 and continued his education at the University of Alabama, becoming a member of Phi Beta Kappa and earned a bachelor of science in metallurgical engineering.
The dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid, but does that mean we risk suffering the same fate - and should you be worried about the possibility? Leah Crane sets the matter straight
The New Scientist Book Club enjoyed our February read, Tim Winton's far-future-set Juice. Head of books Alison Flood rounds up member thoughts
As the New Scientist Book Club embarks on its read for March, Art Cure, author Daisy Fancourt gives a sneak preview into the myriad ways in which the arts can improve our health
In this extract from Daisy Fancourt's Art Cure, the March read for the New Scientist Book Club, we learn about how art classes transformed life for Russell after he had a stroke
Secret-keeping evolved to maintain social harmony, but it can weigh heavily on us when we can’t stop thinking about them. So, what is the best way to deal with things that we don't want anyone else to know?
Superconducting computing circuits were briefly heralded as the future of computing in the 1980s. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan visits a quantum chip foundry where one company is betting this technology’s second act will revolutionise quantum computers
It is a tool, not a replacement.
It is a tool, not a replacement.
The older I get, the more obvious the devastating effects of alcohol become. Even a fairly modest amount, two to four units, leaves me feeling pretty wrecked, pretty quickly. Not just the evening of and the day after. The mental side effects of feeling despondent and generally down linger for days.
I don't indulge too often, but even five to six times per year is starting to feel like too often. Might be time to ditch it altogether.
In the United States, we are losing our fondness for cash. As in many other
countries, cards and other types of electronic payments now dominate everyday
commerce. To some, this is a loss. Cash represented a certain freedom from
intermediation, a comforting simplicity, that you just don't get from Visa.
The congenital condition spina bifida is often treated surgically in the womb, but many children still go on to have mobility issues. The addition of a patch made up of stem cells from donated placentas could improve their long-term outcomes
The Genode OS Framework 26.02 has been released, and its tentpole improvement is the completion of moving configuration from XML to the new human-inclined data syntax, as we talked about a few months ago.
You may not be aware that FreeBSD has a pretty robust set of tools to run Linux binaries, unmodified. The result? A fast, smooth, fully-featured remote development experience on FreeBSD running Linux binaries transparently via the Linuxulator.
It seems the widespread efforts in Europe to drastically reduce its dependency on US technology companies is starting to worry some people. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S.
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 Stories are being released every few weeks.
Genetic evidence hints that there was a strong bias for male Neanderthals and female humans to mate, rather than any other combination
Legislation working its way through the UK parliament would ban children from using social media and virtual private networks – but the proposals would endanger online privacy and may not make children safer, say legal experts
Editor's note: a previous version of this newsletter went out with Matt Hughes' name on it, that's my editor who went over it for spelling errors and loaded it into the CMS.
Nearly all of the solar system’s planets are about to file across the night sky in a planetary alignment, and it will be visible from anywhere on Earth
The UK's first geothermal plant in Cornwall is part of a wave of projects aiming to meet growing electricity demand, some of them enabled by technology from oil and gas fracturing
Both boosters and sceptics have strongly held opinions on AI tools like ChatGPT, but after an experiment in vibe coding, I have realised that both camps are wrong, says Jacob Aron
Savage Heroes (Star, February 1977). Cover by Les Edwards A couple more Sword & Sorcery anthology reviews: first up is Savage Heroes (Subtitled Tales of Sorcery & Black Magic) (1977), from British Publisher Star, edited by Eric Pendragon and illustrated by the great Jim Pitts, who is still working today.
I’ve been a .com purist for over two decades of building. Once, I broke that rule and bought a .online TLD for a small project. This is the story of how it went up in flames. ↫ Tony S. An absolute horror story about Google’s dominance over the web, in places nobody really talks about.
Only a few days ago we talked about the concept of client-side decorations, and how more and more desktop environments and operating systems – specifically GNOME and macOS – are putting more and more buttons, menus, and other widgets inside title bars.
Microsoft released an optional cumulative update for Windows 11, and for once, it actually includes something many of you might actually like: it adds Sysmon from Sysinternals to Windows natively, so you no longer have to install it manually.
The environmental impact of SpaceX's planned gargantuan mega-constellation is still being grappled with, but the FCC isn’t required to study it
From ice ages to asteroid strikes, an epic book shows how important it has been for humans to look outwards. Alex Wilkins surveys a climate historian's cosmic sweep
Feedback is excited to learn that University of Maryland researchers are measuring farts in a bid to build a Human Flatus Atlas, a project that seems destined for an Ig Nobel
Post-apocalyptic bunker sci-fi is huge this year as TV front-runners Fallout, Paradise and Silo return. Bethan Ackerley asks whether this is a signal we’ve given up on our real world, or if there is hidden hope
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
NASA crew members practise emergency rescue drills in a 40-foot-deep pool simulating the lunar surface, as part of tests on a new generation of spacesuit, the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit
Many of us obsess over how much sleep we get each night, and the dangers to our health of not getting enough, but really, there is another way
Join me for a discussion as we mark four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
The alvarezsaurs were thought to have evolved a smaller stature because of their diet of ants and termites, but a new fossil found in Argentina casts doubt on that theory
The discovery of bright yet stable pigments is vanishingly rare, making them hugely valuable. Now chemist Mas Subramanian is unpicking the atomic code of colour and homing in on our most-wanted hue
Code Name: Intrepid is an interesting series from Robert J. Mendenhall, available through his own imprint Blue Planet Press. CNI is a special team of military and civilian experts who handle cases that are extraordinary or of an unusual order in the 1930s.
The commonly used RSA encryption algorithm can now be cracked by a quantum computer with only 100,000 qubits, but the technical challenges to building such a machine remain numerous
Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases
I wrote last May that there was an obvious disadvantage to being the first country to agree trade terms with the United States, particularly when the US is run by an unpredictable, unreliable and dishonest leader.
The drug rapamycin has been held up for its life-extending properties, but whether this treatment – or fasting – actually adds years to your life isn't guaranteed
This must be a universal experience at this point for people who aren’t swayed by the latest and greatest marketing hype around new phone models: there’s just nothing out there that fits one’s needs.
Perhaps Ukraine will finally be rewarded for its incredible resilience
Social media is going the way of alcohol, gambling, and other social sins: Societies are deciding it’s no longer kid stuff. Lawmakers point to compulsive use, exposure to harmful content, and mounting concerns about adolescent mental health.
Fins washing up in the North Pacific suggest that orcas from one subspecies are snacking on other orcas, and researchers think that may explain their different social dynamics
And yet, in the face of unbelievable determination from Ukrainian warriors and civilians, Putin has not achieved a single one of his initial war aims.
Ukraine has responded to a war it didn’t start by creating an industry it doesn’t want, but could the nation's drone expertise help it rebuild? To learn more, New Scientist gained exclusive access to the research labs, factories and military training schools behind Ukraine’s drones
I just made up a Debian trixie setup that has no need for a GUI. In fact, I rarely use the text console either. However, because the machine is dual boot and also serves another purpose, it’s connected to my main monitor and KVM switch.
A cream that directly disrupts the underlying causes of the skin patches seen in the condition vitiligo will be made available on the NHS
Duplicating the information held in quantum computers was thought to be impossible thanks to the no-cloning theorem, but researchers have now found a workaround
People often focus on the bad side effects of vaccines, but they can have some great side effects too, says columnist Michael Le Page. They don’t just protect us from contagious diseases but can also lower the risk of dementia and heart attacks
Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, may have been even more instrumental to the system’s evolution than we thought, forming its rings, shaping its moons and even affecting the planet itself
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! Since the release of Iron Lung, the independent film adaptation of the equally independent video game of the same name, I have been awash in articles, interviews and reviews about the piece.
Join me for a discussion as we mark four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
