Two mass strandings involving hundreds of dolphins in Argentina probably happened because the pods were being hunted by orcas, highlighting the role of predators in these mysterious events
Back in 2023, John Earnest created a fun drawing application called WigglyPaint. The thing that makes WigglyPaint unique is that it automatically applies what artists call the line boil effect to anything you draw, making it seem as if everything is wiggling (hence the name).
Redox, the rapidly improving general purpose operating system written in Rust, has amended its contribution policy to explicitly ban code regurgitated by “AI”. Redox OS does not accept contributions generated by LLMs (Large Language Models), sometimes also referred to as “AI”.
Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my work, 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 5000 to 185,000 words, including vast, extremely
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I’ve been receiving a great many emails of late, of a kind that I’m sure many authors are getting, and I think I should probably talk about it, because it’s all such a scam.
When New Scientist reporter James Woodford was assigned to a story about a virus designed to kill rabbits, he never expected to be accused of spreading it
Statistics that quantify a person’s predisposition to diseases such as diabetes and cancer can be reverse-engineered to reveal the underlying genetic data, prompting privacy concerns
Cortical Labs is building two data centres that will house its neuron-filled chips. The technology is still in the very early stages of development
While FreeBSD 15.x may be getting all the attention, the FreeBSD 14.x branch continues to be updated for the more conservative users among us. FreeBSD 14.4 has been released today, and brings with it updated versions of OpenSSH, OpenZFS, and Bhyve virtual machines can now share files with their host over 9pfs – among other things, of course.
Mushrooms have been used by ancient humans for millennia, but archaeologists have only just uncovered their pivotal role in shaping civilisation
A rapidly brightening burst of light called AT 2024wpp, or "the Whippet", is baffling astronomers. One explanation is that it is the result of an exotic star falling into a black hole
I had previously posted on the excellent Illustration magazine, published by Illustrated Press. It was published quarterly for several years and then ended with issue No. 84 in 2023. It featured articles on a variety of illustration artists who did advertising art, book and magazine covers, and interior artwork, including some pulp magazine artists.
Ryan Gosling stars in the latest adaptation of an Andy Weir novel, another tale of a lone genius battling to survive in space. Bethan Ackerley thoroughly approves
Figuring out what really counts as a galaxy could give us insights into dark matter and potentially shake up astrophysics, cosmology and particle physics, says columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
The speed at which artificial intelligence is gaining in mathematical ability has taken many by surprise. It is rewriting what it means to be a mathematician
An analysis of ancient and modern DNA suggests the extent of convergent evolution in different peoples around the world is even greater than we thought
Charlie Gammell joined me again to discuss the latest in Iran
Changing your mind about the goals of war after you’ve started one is never a good idea
While IBM’s OS/2 technically did die, its development was picked up again much later, first through eComStation, and later, after money issues at its parent company Mensys, through ArcaOS. eComStation development stalled because of the money issues and has been dead for years; ArcaOS picked up where it left off and has been making steady progress since its first release in 2017.
Oh boy. Wikipedia editors have implemented new policies and restricted a number of contributors who were paid to use AI to translate existing Wikipedia articles into other languages after they discovered these AI translations added AI “hallucinations,” or errors, to the resulting article.
Every modifier key starts simple and humble, with a specific task and a nice matching name. This never lasts. The tasks become larger and more convoluted, and the labels grow obsolete. Shift no longer shifts a carriage, Control doesn’t send control codes, Alt isn’t for alternate nerdy terminal functions.
Say what you like about Netanyahu, but he's known what he wanted for years
US-Israeli strikes on oil facilities have caused black rain to fall on Tehran, but the black smoke filling the air is likely to be a bigger health risk
Their species name is well known, but until recently we’ve understood very little for certain about Homo habilis. Columnist Michael Marshall reveals what new fossils are telling us about the hominins that have been considered the first humans
MenuetOS, the operating system written in x86-64 assembly, has released two new versions since we last talked about it roughly two months ago. In fact, I’m not actually sure it’s just two, or more, or fewer, since it seems sometimes releases disappear entirely from the changelog, making things a bit unclear.
We’re learning that frailty can quietly arrive decades before old age, with some people in their 30s or 40s unknowingly in a pre-frail state. There are surprising ways to stay strong – and it’s not all about weight training
Taking a multivitamin every day might slightly slow the rate of ageing, but the extent to which this is relevant to our health is unclear
I continue taking a look at the pulp fanzine The Shadowed Circle with the most recent two issues. The focus of this fanzine is, of course, The Shadow, and I subscribed for issues #7 through 8. While you can get the issues from Amazon, I’d rather subscribe because you get some extras, plus they come […]
Some Samoyeds adjust the pitch of their howls depending on the music being played, showing a form of vocal ability they might have inherited from their wolf ancestors
A single femur found in Bulgaria appears to represent an ape or early hominin that walked on two legs before any known African hominin, but the evidence is far from conclusive
SETI has spent decades listening for a sharp, well-defined radio signal that could indicate it was sent by distant intelligent life. Now researchers believe that space weather could distort and blur such signals – meaning SETI has been scanning for the wrong thing
I’ve read 24 books so far this year, and 17 were audiobooks (we’ve already established I’m not going to say ‘books consumed.’ Listening and physically reading are distinctive, but they’re interchangeable here).
Sonselasuchus cedrus, discovered in fossils from Arizona, was a crocodile relative from the Triassic period that grew into an ostrich-like adult
From beside the queen Gawain to the king did then incline: ‘I implore with prayer plain that this match should now be mine.’ Somehow, I’ve never read Prof. Tolkien’s, let alone anyone’s, translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th cent.), an English poem written by an unknown poet.
Remains, issues 4 and 4. Cover art by Richard Wagner There are readers who, like me, prefer dark fiction in short form, because their suspension of disbelief is too brief to sustain — with a few exceptions — a full novel.
Chris Maddison was just an intern when he started working on the Go-playing AI that would eventually become AlphaGo. A decade later, he talks about that match against Lee Sedol and what came next
It's been 10 years since Go champion Lee Sedol lost to DeepMind's AlphaGo. Has the technology lived up to its potential?
And when a Redox monthly progress report is here, Haiku’s monthly report is never far behind (or vice versa, depending on the month). Haiku’s February was definitely a busy month, but there’s no major tentpole changes or new features, highlighting just how close Haiku is to a new regular beta release.
February has been a busy month for Redox, the general purpose operating system written in Rust. For instance, the COSMIC compositor can now run on Redox as a winit window, the first step towards fully porting the compositor from COSMIC to Redox.
NASA’s DART mission slammed into the small asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, and the impact slowed its orbit around the larger Didymos – and also the pair’s path around the sun
Watch or listen to my discussion with Peter Robinson about today’s autocratic leaders and the implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Looking for molecular evidence of life on other worlds is tricky, but a test based on the reactivity of carbon compounds could be a useful indicator
Persistent inflammation in the gut, lungs and skin might lead to Alzheimer's disease, but lifestyle choices - from getting vaccinated to eating well - can keep inflammation under control
A new book from Rebecca Solnit, promising to bring us hope in these “difficult times”, is among our pick of popular science titles out this month – along with a guide on how to talk to AI, and a look at modern warfare
Models show that as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation gets weaker, the Gulf Stream will drift northwards. There are signs that this is already happening, and a more abrupt shift could warn of more severe climate impacts
Since 2014, the planet has been warming by about 0.36°C per decade, according to an analysis of five temperature datasets, raising fears that climate tipping points could be crossed earlier than expected
Theodora McCormick was born on September 14, 1890 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father died when she was a year old and she was raised by her mother and stepfather. She attended the Barnard School for Girls in Manhattan and the Halsted School in Yonkers.
What do a 20th-century physicist, an 18th-century statistician and an ancient Greek philosopher have in common? They all knew how to extrapolate with incredible accuracy. Columnist Jacob Aron explains how to combine their methods to improve your ability to guess
Everyone knows Yuri Gagarin as the first person to go to space. But was he? Literary historian Vladimir Brljak tells the tale of the intrepid balloonists who first flew beyond the blue terrestrial sky, challenging the definition of where our world begins to end
They don't know what they want to achieve, why they're doing it or what the consequences might be. They are lost in the void.
The war in Iran is a new kind of conflict. It lacks any sense of meaning. It lacks any single articulable objective or even a motivating incident. It is taking place beyond the shores of reason.
Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers (Avon Books, 1964) “I know who you are now,” said Nurse Philliter, slowly. “You — you gave evidence against Sir Julian Freke. In fact, you traced the murder to him, didn’t you?” In Unnatural Death, the third Wimsey novel, Sayers again makes medical issues vital to the plot and the mystery.
One day, I suddenly wondered how to detect when a USB device is plugged or unplugged from a computer running Linux. For most users, this would be solved by relying on libusb. However, the use case I was investigating might not actually want to do so, and so this led me down a poorly-documented rabbit hole.
Oracle’s Solaris 11 basically comes in two different flavours: the SRU (Support Repository Update) releases for commercial Oracle customers, and the CBE (Common Build Environment) releases, available to everyone.
In the world of open source, relicensing is notoriously difficult. It usually requires the unanimous consent of every person who has ever contributed a line of code, a feat nearly impossible for legacy projects.
The memory management in DOS is simple, but that simplicity may be deceptive. There are several rather interesting pitfalls that programming documentation often does not mention. ↫ Michal Necasek at the OS/2 Museum A must-read for people writing software for earlier DOS versions.
A ring of 13 carbon atoms and two chlorine atoms has a remarkable molecular structure that means you would have to go around the loop four times to return to your starting position
Taking psilocybin – the psychedelic component of magic mushrooms – eased symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder among people who did not respond to conventional treatments, and the effects lasted at least several months
Indigenous people in Papua, Indonesia, have helped scientists track down two animals that were thought to have gone extinct thousands of years ago: a relative of Australia’s greater glider and a palm-sized possum with a bizarre, elongated finger
The Alzheimer’s field is being turned on its head as mounting evidence points to the disease beginning outside the brain many years before symptoms start. This may mean we have to totally rethink how we approach preventing and treating the condition
What’s the scroll lock key actually for? Scroll Lock was reportedly specifically added for spreadsheets, and it solved a very specific problem: before mice and trackpads, and before fast graphic cards, moving through a spreadsheet was a nightmare.
Apple today announced the “MacBook Neo,” an all-new kind of low-cost Mac featuring the A18 Pro chip for $599. The MacBook Neo is the first Mac to be powered by an iPhone chip; the A18 Pro debuted in 2024’s iPhone 16 Pro models.
My writing, interviews, and events from February 2026
An exceptionally flexible region of the spine enables falling cats to twist the front and back halves of their body sequentially to ensure a safe landing
Feedback is pleased to discover another delightfully unconventional unit of measurement, which is used to convey amounts of snow on Ottawa's Rideau canal
If up to 20 per cent of us really do score highly on traits related to psychopathy, we are going to need all the help offered by a compelling new book. Start by admitting your own dark traits, finds Sally Adee
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
The latest novel in this entirely original science-fiction series features a human-size mantis shrimp as an "uplifted" species. It's ambitious and fantastic, says sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson
Whether you call it a vibe shift or a paradigm shift, physicists must be ready to challenge their fundamental understanding of the universe without fear or nostalgia
Most coastal risk assessments have underestimated current sea levels, meaning tens of millions of people face losing their homes to rising waters earlier than expected
Towards the end of 2025, we got the fourth volume of Wild Inc. by Jack MacKenzie: Go, Johnny Go. The covers, both front and back, are clearly inspired by the Bantam Doc Savage volumes, as the main character and organization are a loose pastiche of Doc.
The end-Permian extinction 252 million years ago wiped out over 80 per cent of marine species, but many ecosystems still had complex food webs despite the losses
This International Women's Day, we should prioritise groundbreaking research into women's health, such as strengthening the reproductive system's natural defences, says Anita Zaidi
AI chatbot Claude going down is just one example of a recent IT outage. One of the main vulnerabilities of the modern internet is to blame for the growing number of incidents
Is an evil moron less dangerous than an evil genius?
Microplastics have been found accumulating everywhere from our water to our body tissues, but many of the claims have come under fresh scrutiny. Chelsea Whyte cuts through the research to tell you whether you really need to worry
I don’t systematically collect comic book materials but I pick up Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard related stuff when I see it. Found all three of the Marvel paperbacks above at various book sales.
Chips and Cheese has an excellent deep dive into Arm’s latest core design, and I have thoughts. Arm now has a core with enough performance to take on not only laptop, but also desktop use cases. They’ve also shown it’s possible to deliver that performance at a modest 4 GHz clock speed.
Fifteen months have passed since our last Guix/Hurd on a Thinkpad X60 post and a lot has happened with respect to the Hurd. And most of you will have guessed, unless you skipped the title of this post, the rumored x86_64 support has landed in Guix! ↫ Janneke Nieuwenhuizen and Yelninei at the Guix blog A huge amount of work has gone into this effort over the past 18 months, but you can now download Guix and alongside the Linux kernel, you can now opt for the Hurd as well, in eother 32bit or 64 bit flavour.
A recording from Michael McFaul and Katie Couric's live video
The 13th Warrior (102 minutes; 1999) Written by William Wisher and Warren Lewis. Directed by John McTiernan Based on the novel, Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton, who also served as a producer and uncredited director.
A method for making quantum computers less error-prone could let them run complex programs such as simulations of materials more efficiently, thus making them more useful
Editor's Note: Apologies if you received this email twice - we had an issue with our mail server that meant it was hitting spam in many cases!
Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my work, please subscribe to my premium newsletter.
A family in Utah with a disproportionate number of boys has been traced back over hundreds of years, revealing that its lack of female members is probably due to a selfish Y chromosome
Analysing the births of a Utah family over seven generations has revealed that their disproportionate number of boys could be caused by a selfish Y chromosome
From the cost of childcare to the housing crisis, there’s no shortage of explanations for the dramatic global fall in the number of babies being born. These analyses, though, are all missing something, says cognitive and evolutionary anthropologist Paula Sheppard
The microbes that live in our mouth and gut may influence whether an allergic reaction to peanuts is mild or life-threatening, and could be harnessed to ward off a severe attack
The US and Iran are trading blows in the Gulf with a simple drone that costs as little as $50,000 to make. But why is a slow, cheap and relatively primitive drone seeing use in 2026 alongside hypersonic missiles and stealth jets?
The science writer delves into the vast subject of consciousness in his new book A World Appears – and draws some surprising conclusions, finds Grace Wade
Shaped by a different biology or culture, other intelligent civilisations – if they’re out there – might understand the universe in a completely different way than we do. Physicist Daniel Whiteson explores what that could tell us about physics and ourselves
Drones aren't yet licensed to carry passengers, but some may already be airlifting wounded personnel off the battlefield and could be employed for smuggling people
