Fathers may get postpartum depression at a similar rate to mothers, but it’s often overlooked. At last, the way we diagnose and treat it is improving, for the good of the whole family
Babies in the West commonly lack a gut microbe that is found in infants in other parts of the world, which may be due to differences in their mothers' diets
Running 170 kilometres over mountainous terrain caused people's red blood cells to accumulate more age-related damage than those of less ambitious athletes
KDE Plasma 6.6 has been released, and brings with a whole slew of new features. You can save any combination of themes as a global theme, and there’s a new feature allowing you to increase or decrease the contrast of frames and outlines.
SvarDOS is an open-source project that is meant to integrate the best out of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development has been abandoned by commercial players a long time ago, mostly during early nineties.
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about AsteroidOS, the Linux distribution designed specifically to run on smartwatches, providing a smartwatch interface and applications built with Qt and QML.
Every modern iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS application uses Asset Catalogs to manage images, colors, icons, and other resources. When you build an app with Xcode, your .xcassets folders are compiled into binary .car files that ship with your application.
Within the major operating system of its day, on popular hardware of its day, ran the utterly dominant relational database software of its day. PC Magazine, February 1984, said, “Independent industry watchers estimate that dBASE II enjoys 70 percent of the market for microcomputer database managers.” Similar to past subjects HyperCard and Scala Multimedia, Wayne Ratcliff’s dBASE II was an industry unto itself, not just for data-management, but for programmability, a legacy which lives on today as xBase.
A technology that uses a coiled wire to electrify aerosols has boosted snowfall amid a drought in the western US, according to the company developing it, but the results haven't convinced other scientists
An ultrastable laser could enable extremely precise timing and navigation on the moon, and the cold, dark craters near the lunar poles would be the ideal location for it
The evolution of human hands is one of the most important – and overlooked – stories of our origin. Now, new fossil evidence is revealing their pivotal role
A giant virus encodes part of the protein-making toolkit of cells that gives it greater control over its amoeba host, raising questions about how it evolved and how such beings relate to living organisms
Hearing a sound while working on a complex puzzle, and then hearing it again during sleep, helped lucid dreamers better tackle the problem the next day
A mathematical equivalent of a microscope with variable resolution has shed light on why some atoms are exceptionally stable, a riddle that has persisted in nuclear physics for decades
The psychedelic DMT has been linked to improved mental health outcomes before, but now, scientists have shown it reduces depression symptoms more than a placebo when given alongside therapeutic support
The big bang wasn’t the start of everything, but it has been impossible to see what came before. Now a new kind of cosmology is lifting the veil on the beginning of time
Biologists have debated the reason why Homo sapiens evolved a prominent lower jaw, but this unique feature may actually be a by-product of other traits shaped by natural selection
We are used to heat flowing from hot objects to cool ones, and never the other way round, but now researchers have found it is possible to pull off this trick in the strange realm of quantum mechanics
The shape of the cosmos depends on a balance of two competing forces: the pull of gravity and the expansion driven by dark energy. Columnist Leah Crane explores what observations tell us about how much universe is out there and whether it’s shaped like a sheet, a saddle or something else entirely
Intermittent fasting appears to be no better than doing nothing when it comes to helping people who are overweight or have obesity lose weight
In my fundraiser pitch published last Monday, one of the things I highlighted as a reason to contribute to OSNews and ensure its continued operation stated that “we do not use any ‘AI’; not during research, not during writing, not for images, nothing.” In the comments to that article, someone asked: Why do I care if you use AI? ↫ A comment posted on OSNews A few days ago, Scott Shambaugh rejected a code change request submitted to popular Python library matplotlib because it was obviously written by an “AI”, and such contributions are not allowed for the issue in question.
Have you ever wanted to read the original design documents underlying the Windows NT operating system? This binder contains the original design specifications for “NT OS/2,” an operating system designed by Microsoft that developed into Windows NT.
There’s the two behemoth architectures, x86 and ARM, and we probably all own one or more devices using each. Then there’s the eternally up-and-coming RISC-V, which, so far, seems to be having a lot of trouble outgrowing its experimental, developmental stage.
If you look at the table of contents for my book, Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, you’ll see that entries on networks before/outside the internet are arranged first by underlying infrastructure and then chronologically.
January was a busy month for Haiku, with their monthly report listing a metric ton of smaller fixes, changes, and improvements. Perusing the list, a few things stand out to me, most notably continued work on improving Haiku’s touchpad support.
We often lament Microsoft’s terrible stewardship of its Windows operating system, but that doesn’t mean that they never do anything right. In a blog post detailing changes and improvements coming to the Microsoft Store, the company announced something Windows users might actually like? A new command-line interface for the Microsoft Store brings app discovery, installation and update management directly to your terminal.
Five dietary patterns that involve eating lots of plants have been linked with living up to three years longer, even among people who are genetically predisposed to have a shorter life
Finding rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold, in preserved medical specimens and analysing their RNA genome could let us trace the evolution of human illness
Simulations suggest that two enormous masses of hot rock have been involved in generating Earth’s magnetic field and giving it an irregular shape
The team behind Tyr started 2025 with little to show in our quest to produce a Rust GPU driver for Arm Mali hardware, and by the end of the year, we were able to play SuperTuxKart (a 3D open-source racing game) at the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC).
Scientists may have stumbled across a network of vessels in the brain that helps clear out waste fluid – a discovery that could "represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of all neurodegenerative diseases"
Immune cells in the brain that go rogue contribute to the death of neurons, so getting rid of them may slow the progression of neurodegenerative conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
A growing body of psychological research shows that the best relationships – romantic or otherwise – come with a feeling of personal growth. Columnist David Robson explores the evidence-backed ways to broaden our horizons and connect more deeply with our loves, our friends and ourselves
Life may have begun when RNA molecules began to replicate themselves, and now we’ve finally found an RNA molecule that is very close to being able to do this
The planets around a nearby star seem to be in the wrong order, hinting that they formed through a different mechanism than the familiar one by which most systems grow
The activity of certain neurons may influence our endurance for exercise, and these could be targeted to help us run faster for longer
The idea of self-amplifying gene editing is to get cells to pass on packages of CRISPR machinery to their neighbours, boosting the effect
A fleet of wind-propelled robot boats could act as a sensor network covering a wide area and relay acoustic signals to a submarine
With the original release of Windows 8, Microsoft also enforced Secure Boot. It’s been 15 years since that release, and that means the original 2011 Secure Boot certificates are about to expire. If these certificates are not replaced with new ones, Secure Boot will cease to function – your machine will still boot and operate, but the benefits of Secure Boot are mostly gone, and as newer vulnerabilities are discovered, systems without updated Secure Boot certificates will be increasingly exposed.
What happens when you slopcode a bunch of bloat to your basic text editor? Well, you add a remote code execution vulnerability to notepad.exe. Improper neutralization of special elements used in a command (‘command injection’) in Windows Notepad App allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.
Many researchers thought that earthquakes in the Himalayas recur at regular intervals – but an analysis of sediment cores has shown they are largely random, and the region has seen far more than we previously realised
The Chincha Kingdom was transporting seabird excrement from islands to valleys as early as the 13th century, and this powerful fertiliser may have been key to its economic success
If you’re a developer and use KDE, you’re going to be interested in a new feature KDE is working on for KDE Linux. In my last post, I laid out the vision for Kapsule—a container-based extensibility layer for KDE Linux built on top of Incus.
It's hard not to despair about the state of the world today, but here are five reasons to be a little bit hopeful, says Fred Pearce
We are told we need cynical strategies to "play" the dating game, but the science says this is totally wrong. David Robson enjoys an evidence-based takedown from psychologist Paul Eastwick
Feedback is always on the lookout for better ways to measure things, and was delighted to learn how the weight of ice is quantified in Austin, Texas
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
There are huge benefits to ringing the changes when it comes to exercise, finds committed runner Grace Wade when she analyses the science
In George Saunders's Vigil, a ghost visits Earth to help a dying oil tycoon, while terraforming efforts on Mars are about to bear fruit in The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel. Emily H. Wilson's sci-fi column explores two very different short novels
We must find a balance between haste and getting mired in medical inertia
Biologists have long thought that speaking to nature’s economic value would persuade boardrooms it was worth saving. It hasn’t worked – so what, if anything, will?
About 4600 years ago, the population of Britain was replaced by a people who brought Bell Beaker pottery with them. Now, ancient DNA has uncovered the murky story of where these people came from
A gene therapy that patients breathe in has been found to shrink lung tumours by inserting immune-boosting genes into surrounding cells
South Australia is proving to the world that relying largely on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap, with electricity prices tumbling by 30 per cent in a year and sometimes going negative
Scientists have captured remarkable footage of the young of a mouse-sized marsupial, called a fat-tailed dunnart, making their way to their mother’s pouch soon after being born
Another month, another Redox progress report. January turned out to be a big month for the Rust-based general purpose operating system, as they’ve cargo and rustc working on Redox. Cargo and rustc are now working on Redox! Thanks to Anhad Singh and his southern-hemisphere Redox Summer of Code project, we are now able to compile your favorite Rust CLI and TUI programs on Redox.
I’m currently building an 80386-compatible core in SystemVerilog, driven by the original Intel microcode extracted from real 386 silicon. Real mode is now operational in simulation, with more than 10,000 single-instruction test cases passing successfully, and work on protected-mode features is in progress.
For me, vim is a combination of genuine improvements in vi’s core editing behavior (cf), frustrating (to me) bits of trying too hard to be smart (which I mostly disable when I run across them), and an extension mechanism I ignore but people use to make vim into a superintelligent editor with things like LSP integrations.
Building the human story based on a few artefacts is tricky – particularly for wooden tools that don’t preserve well, or cave art that we don’t have the technology to date. Columnist Michael Marshall explores how we determine what came first in the timeline of our species
Once considered an oddity of quantum physics, time crystals could be a good building block for accurate clocks and sensors, according to new calculations
Networks of molecules in our body behave as though they have goals and desires. Understanding this phenomenon could solve the origins of life and mind in one fell swoop
Electric vehicle batteries are typically retired once they reach about 80 per cent of their original capacity, but they could be repurposed in electricity grids to balance out slumps in renewable generation
Setting a limit for global warming didn't succeed in galvanising climate action quickly enough – now we should focus on making the annual average temperature rise clear for all to see, says Bill McGuire
The lines worn into an engraved limestone object from the Netherlands are consistent with the idea that it was a Roman game board, according to an AI analysis
Ripples in space-time from a pair of merging black holes have been recorded in unprecedented detail, enabling physicists to test predictions of general relativity
Scientists have pinpointed a group of bacteria that consistently appear in high numbers in healthy people, suggesting that these could one day be targeted through diet or probiotics
People classed as “overweight” according to BMI can be perfectly healthy. But there are better measures of fat, and physicians are finally using them
People classed as “overweight” according to BMI can be perfectly healthy. But there are better measures of fat, and physicians are finally using them
It’s time for an OSNews fundrasier! This time, it’s unplanned due to a financial emergency after our car unexpectedly had to be scrapped (you can find more details below). If you want to support one of the few independent technology news websites left, this is your chance.
About a year ago I mentioned that I had rediscovered the Dillo Web Browser. Unlike some of my other hobbies, endeavours, and interests, my appreciation for Dillo has not wavered. I only have a moment to gush today, so I’ll cut right to it.
KDE’s Nate Graham has published a status update about KDE Linux, the KDE project’s new immutable Linux distribution, intended to be the “KDE OS” showcasing the best of the KDE community.
Cameron Kaiser comes in with another amazing article, this time diving into a unique video titler from Canada, released in 1985. The Super Micro Script was one of several such machines this company made over its lifetime, a stylish self-contained box capable of emitting a 32×16 small or 10×4 large character layer with 64×32 block graphics in eight colours.
A type of cognitive training that tests people's quick recall seems to reduce the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease
Paul Erdős was one of the most prolific mathematicians to ever live, known for showing up at the door of others in the field and declaring they should host and feed him while they do maths together. His radical life should be immortalised by Hollywood in a comedy biopic, says columnist Jacob Aron
One type of friction can waste energy even when two perfectly smooth surfaces move against each other, but researchers are getting a handle on how to attenuate or stop it completely
The first people to reach the Kitsissut Islands off the north-west coast of Greenland were Indigenous peoples, who crossed over 50 kilometres of treacherous water
If you use an Apple silicon Mac I’m sure you have been impressed by its performance. Whether you’re working with images, audio, video or building software, we’ve enjoyed a new turn of speed since the M1 on day 1.
We talked about Nemin’s first impressions of the Guix System as someone coming from a Nix environment, but today they’ve got a follow-up article diving into the experience of creating new packages for Guix.
It was only a matter of time before the illegal, erratic, inhumane, and cruel behaviours and policies of the second Trump regime were going to affect the open source world in a possibly very visible way.
“As part of our efforts to use more sovereign digital solutions, the European Commission is preparing an internal communication solution based on the Matrix protocol,” the spokesperson told Euractiv. Matrix is an open source, community-developed messaging protocol shepherded by a non-profit that’s headquartered in London.
What does it look like when a hardware and software company descends into an obsession with recurring services revenue to please its shareholders? Look no further than Apple, who has turned its Apple News service into a vehicle for scam ads.
The flow of ice at Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has sped up dramatically due to the disintegration of the ice shelf in front of it, and this could lead to faster sea level rise
Science funding cuts in the UK are expected to be a "devastasting blow" for physics research, affecting international projects such as particle detection experiments at CERN
When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too
Five volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io erupted simultaneously, spewing a mind-boggling amount of lava onto the surface and giving us clues to what may lie underneath
By matching uterine contractions up with the body’s natural circadian rhythms, inducing labour in the early morning is linked to shorter labour and fewer emergency C-sections
A review of the evidence suggests that statins are no more likely than a placebo to cause most of the side effects listed on their labels
I nominate this for the “Most Expected News Of The Decade” award. Today, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report spotlighting newly unsealed documents in the 2026 social media addiction trials.
An otherworldly coral, a very cute moth and an intricately beautiful mushroom are among the winners in the prize this year
Pesticides are becoming more toxic and just about every country is using more of them year after year, despite a UN target to halve the overall risk by 2030
A change in atmospheric chemistry during the covid pandemic resulted in methane concentrations spiking, raising concerns that cleaning up pollution could have similar knock-on effects in the future
Kanzi, a bonobo with exceptional language skills, took part in a make-believe tea party that demonstrated cognitive abilities never seen before in non-human primates
An experiment with superconducting qubits opens the door to determining whether quantum devices could be less energetically costly if they are powered by quantum batteries
Two-year-olds raised in vegan or vegetarian households don't necessarily have restricted growth, according to a study of 1.2 million children
Gadgets, desk accessories, widgets – whatever you they were called, they were a must-have feature for various operating systems for a while. Windows in particular has tried making them happen six times, and every time, they failed to really catch on and ended up being killed, only for the company to try again a few years later.
Microsoft Research, in collaboration with various others, has just released LiteBox, a library operating system. LiteBox is a sandboxing library OS that drastically cuts down the interface to the host, thereby reducing attack surface.
An antibody that has the power to neutralise any influenza strain could be widely administered in the form of a nasal spray if a flu pandemic emerges
The late photographer's work depicting some of the world's coldest places is collected in his new book Genesis
In his lyrical book Frostlines, Neil Shea argues that we are more connected to the Arctic than we might think, says Elle Hunt
Feedback is delighted by an experiment on the Milan metro system, which involved a prosthetic bump, a Batman costume and some unexpected displays of public decency