Set in an empty world after a superflu pandemic wipes out most of humanity, Peter Heller's The Dog Stars - the August read for the New Scientist Book Club - will be released as a film later this month.
To predict when we’ll have a truly useful quantum computer, we need to know precisely what one is. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan finds that’s harder to pin down than you might think
When I had to use Windows 11 for a month because you people paid me to do so, the one seemingly small thing that really ground my gears were Windows 11’s terrible right-click (context) menus. They were full of stuff I didn’t put there, slow to open, and in some places, a modern Windows 11 context menu would have its own old Win32 context menu with even more stuff.
We may all have a disdain for Chrome – OSNews users probably use Chrome a lot less than the average public – but that doesn’t mean the browser doesn’t sometimes do interesting things other browsers should copy.
We all have bits of DNA from a long-lost “ghost ancestor” inside us – and by putting all the different bits together, we might be able to reconstruct their genome
The mummies of two people who lived in Chile more than 400 years ago carry DNA from smallpox, providing the first molecular evidence that the virus was brought to the Americas from Europe
Genetic tests of mammoth remains have found a stark contrast in the sex ratio between sites where the animals died naturally and those associated with humans, offering hints about how our ancestors hunted
A tiny sensor that unfolds within the body could continuously monitor our heart activity and breathing after showing promise in rats
Rebecca Skloot told the story of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells were taken without her permission in a bestselling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Reading it left Alison George with an uneasy feeling - so she spoke to Lacks's family
Networks of pipes carrying chilled water have proven to be an efficient way to cool hospitals and universities. Now, they are expanding into cities as heatwaves increase in the US and Europe
A treatment that turns off the bit of the immune system that goes haywire in Guillain-Barré syndrome may be the first targeted therapy approved for the autoimmune condition
Three problems that are out of reach for conventional computers have been cracked by quantum computers and show how important the machines could become for scientific research
Certain sleeping positions can lead to babies developing flattened heads, and an analysis of ancient skulls from Italy reveals that this condition affected people in the 9th century BC
The cosmological principle is the foundation of modern cosmology – but its usefulness doesn’t necessarily make it true, says columnist Leah Crane
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! (for at least three months from its posting date) Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown We round up groups every several weeks, but check the Chain Story website for the latest.
A stunningly intact marine reptile named Austronaga minuta that lived around 245 million years ago may have looked like a miniature version of more famous later ocean predators, like plesiosaurs
A recording of my recent talk at the Aspen Institute
There was unusual consensus amongst New Scientist Book Club members about our read for July, with readers falling over themselves to praise this big-concept slice of science fiction
Measures like bans on advertising junk food to children are essential for instilling healthy eating at a young age, but we shouldn't let adults off the hook when it comes to improving our diets
This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles
Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon
Feedback is delighted by a deep dive into why people sometimes wear "artificially elongated fingernails". But does it do more than just scratch the surface?
If the sun suddenly disappeared, how long would life on Earth last, from humans and plants to subterranean bacteria? And why do humans so readily adopt fiction into our lives, and feel emotion about characters as though they were someone close to us in real life?
An Australian reader with an abundance of flies in their locality tries to answer a question that has intrigued many of our readers
In early 2026, Charles F. Millhouse, creator of New Pulp character Captain Stephen Hawklin, came out with a new collection of short stories set in the 1930s: The Classic Adventures of Captain Hawklin, one for each year from 1930 to 1939.
It’s that time of the week again, I guess. The year is 2026, and I’m still amazed when I find a new entry in my Start menu’s All apps list for an app I don’t remember installing. This time, it’s Microsoft again, and the product is OneDrive Photos, which appears to be yet another photo viewer and editor for Windows 11 that nobody asked to have installed automatically.
Ubuntu Touch, the mobile Linux operating system originally started by, you guessed it, Ubuntu, but now managed by UBports, released versions 24.04-2.0 and 24.04-1.4. The latter is a maintenance release with some bug fixes and minor changes, while the former is a bigger release with quite a few improvements, so let’s focus on that one.
I’ve been fascinated by the idea of attaching multiple mice to one computer, and then having multiple mouse cursors inside of one desktop environment! I just spent three weeks investigating how well that’s currently supported on Linux & Wayland.
Last summer, I noticed an insect bringing a bit of leaf to plug the hole in a bit of bamboo that is part of one of those folding director’s chairs.
This wasn’t my original plan for this guest post. The day before writing this, I was interviewed for the Functional Nerds podcast. During the interview, cohost Tracy Townsend brought up my recent Uncanny Magazine editorial where I said, “Nobody would call a yearly referendum about whether or not your business should exist a stress-free process.” Tracy wanted to know why I kept doing this if that’s the case.
Parker’s first appearance: The Hunter (Pocket Books, 1962) What is it? Parker begins! He’s angry. He’s determined. He’s out for blood. And he’s got big hands! He’s walking across the George Washington Bridge into New York, scaring motorists who glimpse him out the window as they drive by.
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A jaguar that has been dubbed Gaspar traversed 2100 kilometres of the Amazon, crossing farms and roads. But why he set off on this mission is unclear
Rats are a scourge on island wildlife all over the world. But an island off the coast of Ireland is showing how to successfully gain the upper hand
Climate change is affecting the yields and flavour of the traditional Japanese tea matcha, but studying its seedlings' genetic tolerance for heat could future-proof the crop
After the Chicxulub impact 66 million years ago, trillions of tonnes of rock vapour was launched into space before falling back to Earth at ballistic speeds, creating a global blast of heat strong enough to broil life on land
Flame-generated thunderstorms known as pyrocumulonimbus clouds can make wildfires even more intense, and they are expected to become more common in Europe
The first of a new generation of drugs that works in a completely different way to existing ones has been approved. Columnist Michael Le Page says this approach could transform treatments for all kinds of conditions
Dave Farquhar published an article today about Windows NT 3.1’s place in the market when it was originally released, and while the article is interesting and a fun read, it does mention this: Microsoft took its nascent code that it intended to form the base of OS/2 3.0, renamed it Windows New Technology, and eventually released it as Windows NT 3.1.
This is a walkthrough of how Fedora turns source code and packages into the artifacts you download and install. It follows the a package from a packager’s git push to a composed release: ISOs, cloud images, container images, and OSTree deployments.
Let’s do another article about weird code in video games. The original 1992 Comanche release is extremely picky about memory managers. The game refuses to work with EMM emulators and crashes when EMM386 is active.
A drug advisory committee in the US has recommended approval for several experimental peptides. But there have been no large-scale tests of these new compounds in humans, finds columnist Grace Wade
Over 1.4 million years ago, a group of eight ancient hominins walked across a shallow mudflat, but their footprints don’t match those of Paranthropus boisei or Homo erectus
Climate campaigners are angry at reports that the UK government is set to allow oil and gas drilling projects to go ahead, but the focus must be on ending fossil fuel consumption, not production, says Michael Le Page
Astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole straying far from the centre of its galaxy using light from a star being ripped apart
As you get older, your body’s response to food changes significantly. But by making the right changes to what you eat from midlife and beyond, it might be possible to add a decade to your life
An eye implant and a pair of high-tech glasses that enable people with a severe form of vision loss to read have been approved for use by a European regulator
Earlier this year, the revised third edition of Bookery’s Guide to Pulps & Related Magazines by Tim Cottrill came out from Murania Press. The first edition came out in 2005, which was actually an update of The Ultimate Guide to the Pulps from 2001, and the second edition came out in 2020 from Ivy Press […]
Haiku has a Firefox port, but due to Mozilla’s trademark policies, it’s actually called Iceweasel. After some back-and-forth with Mozilla, the browser maker has no given Haiku permission to officially use the Firefox name for the port.
Apple has transitioned its hardware products to the AArch64 processor architecture and is phasing out support for x64. Oracle engineers will thus stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port as of JDK 27. Maintaining the port is a significant burden.
That is the first line of the 80s microcomputer BASIC game The Wizard’s Castle initially written for the Exidy Sorcerer platform. It’s a REMark statement, a comment in that particular language.
I haven’t shared what I’ve been watching, since February. Nothing earth shattering, but I’m sure you occasionally wonder. So… Back in January, I canceled all my subs except for Prime (keeping BritBox within that one).
An increasing number of studies have linked ultra-processed foods with depression, anxiety and even dementia. Columnist Helen Thomson explores how strong the evidence is for the brain effects of a diet full of these foods
Weird Tales volume 1 number 1 boasts 26 separate pieces of fiction, one of which is continued in the next issue. As you’d expect from an anthology, some stories are better than others. None reach the heights of the fiction the magazine would publish later.
Preventing rogue Islamic states from getting nuclear technology sounds like a good idea.
The Year’s Best Horror Stories XV (DAW Books, October 1987). Cover by Michael Whelan It’s been awhile, but given a nudge from John O’Neill I’m back with the ongoing perusal of DAW’s Year’s Best Horror series.
The hottest and most promising operating system kernel in development, the GNU Hurd, has published another summary of its most recent quarter of development. Hurd has experimental support for 9pfs now, a work-in–progress port of OpenNTPD, the NTP daemon from OpenBSD, a port of Neovim, and a few more ports here and there.
Given that Android phones have been around for nearly two decades now, there comes a time when Google has to end support for one of its older software versions. For a couple of years now, Google Play services has been supported on devices running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or newer.
The Deep Space Network is our best way to communicate with spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit, and one of its three stations around the world is in the middle of a wildfire
A conversation with Caterina Buchatskiy, Director of Analytics at the Snake Island Institute, one of Ukraine's leading defense and security think tanks.
Researchers have created a textile made from the parasitic fungus Cordyceps militaris, which is biodegradable and can be adapted for different purposes with various microbes
Good morning premium subscribers! As ever, please ping me at ez@betteroffline.com if you have any questions.
Oracle has one of the strongest mythologies in the tech industry.
To understand where climate change is heading, we have to look at the planet’s distant past and appreciate the disturbing uniqueness of our situation, says Bill McGuire
Well, it’s nearing the end of July 2026, and coming up, we have this year’s PulpFest along with a new issue of The Pulpster, the convention book, now up to #35. This year, it runs 72 pages, many in color.
In a small study, restricting calories led to greater weight loss among people with a biological age younger than their chronological age
He has a diagnosis, a proposed cure, and a strategy. Which is more than we can say for the last lot.
Harry Stephen Keeler was born in Chicago on November 3, 1890. His father died when he was two and his mother subsequently remarried. After her new husband, who was a gambler, lost Keeler’s mother’s savings and mortgaged the family home that was left to her by Keeler’s father, he killed himself.
Humans have been observing solar eclipses for millennia – carving, painting, sketching and finally photographing as the moon blocks out the disc of the sun
We tend to think of the brain as being made up of highly specialised cells, but a study in mice suggests that most neurons are generalists
When researchers found evidence of a black hole flying out of its galaxy, nobody knew how that could happen. Now we have an explanation
When it comes to supplements to stave off the effects of ageing, columnist Graham Lawton admits he is a hardened sceptic. But he finds some evidence for a few that can improve biological age as we grow older
A rather unusual announcement was made late last night: the FreeBSD project has frozen their ports repository. For more than 48 hours now, no changes have been accepted or made to the tree, and here’s why.
The High Crusade (Berkley Books, October 1983). Cover by Tom Kidd The High Crusade is one of the earlier novels in Poul Anderson’s long career: serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in the summer of 1960 (just as it was changing its title to Analog), published in book form that same year, and nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1961, though it lost to A Canticle for Leibowitz.
The super El Niño now developing in the tropical Pacific has a 90 per cent chance of becoming the strongest in 150 years, breaking global temperature records and unleashing extreme weather
A podcast I just listened to raised again the thorny issue of blogger’s guilt, and tried to make it seem like nothing, that you are answerable only to yourself, that you can blog at any cadence that suits you.
For the second time in a week, a long-standing conjecture has been disproved by artificial intelligence, highlighting the advanced mathematical capabilities of ChatGPT and its ilk
Haivya has developed acoustic signals designed to influence plant development, and its trials reportedly show large yield increases in soybean, pepper and cannabis crops
Mathematicians who helped unify laws of physics and cracked decades-old problems in geometry are among this year's recipients of the Fields medal
An analysis of supernovae argues that the universe’s expansion is not speeding up, so there is no need for dark energy to exist to explain it
We all know the original Amiga was far ahead of its time, and the Amiga really doesn’t need more retrospectives and glazing. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t want more Amiga retrospectives and glazing.
Viscera, voids and light-gobbling Vantablack conspire to disturb and amaze in Anish Kapoor’s new exhibition, which has heavy nods to the nature of reality, science and religion
This post is about the evolution of Futhark’s type checker, motivated by a large refactoring I am about to merge. It is probably mostly of interest to other language designers, and contains some lessons I wish I had known when we first got started – although I am not particularly well-read in the type checking literature, so it’s possible all of this is old hat.
Orcas have been seen smashing into sharp-tail sunfish so hard that the fish bursts into thousands of fragments, perhaps as a form of play as well as food processing
Long overlooked, the connection between our gut microbes and brain is yielding new insights into mental health
The role of AI tools (LLMs, mainly) in Linux is under discussion, or it was, until Linus Torvalds “put his foot down” in support of the use of AI in Linux kernel development.
I can identify two major ways in which AI is used for Linux kernel development: authoring code and reviewing code.
In addition to his Black Vulmea and Bran Mak Morn stories, David C. Smith collaborated with Richard L. Tierney (1936 –2022) on six novels in a series about Red Sonja. Though often described as Robert E.
If American leaders continue to go it alone abroad and foment division at home, we will lose the 21st century to China.
Honestly, it feels like only yesterday that System76, Linux OEM and the company behind pop!_OS, announced it was going to develop its own desktop environment, COSMIC. We’re about seven months into the more general availability of COSMIC, and the company has put up a nice overview of the various improvements that have already made their way into the code since then.
What happens when programmers get to vote on a complete ban on slopcoded software on their code platform? Members of Codeberg were asked to vote on a proposal to completely ban slopcoded projects from Codeberg, and in what should not be a surprising outcome to anyone not overcome with “AI” hysteria, the vast majority voted in favour of the complete ban: over 70% of Codeberg members voted to ban slopcoded projects entirely (358 in favour, 144 against, 14 abstentions).
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