An implant that monitors brain activity and provides personalised stimulation halved the discomfort of people living with chronic pain

Social upheaval across Europe between 1250 and 1860 correlates with volcanic eruptions, reduced sunspot activity and surging food prices

Psilocybin appears to alter brain networks linked to repetitive negative thoughts, which may explain how the drug helps to treat some mental health conditions

A tiny engine comprised of a glass bead zapped with electric fields behaves as if it is operating 2000 times hotter than the sun

Weather apps regularly differ in their predictions for the same location – why is it so hard to predict local forecasts, and where can we get the best weather information?

The New Scientist Book Club has just finished reading Alex Foster's sci-fi novel “Circular Motion”. We liked it – but there were calls for a bit more science in this slice of science fiction

The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading Ursula K. Le Guin's classic science fiction novel "The Dispossessed". Here, her son Theo Downes-Le Guin considers the artistic process behind it – and why it still resonates today

The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic novel The Dispossessed. In this extract from its opening, we get our first glimpse of the planet Anarres

Surgery, not antibiotics, might be the best way to treat chronic rhinosinusitis, a condition that leaves people with a permanently blocked or runny nose and a reduced sense of smell

Social media platforms will soon have to exclude children under 16 in Australia, but there are doubts over how age verification tools will work – and whether this is the right approach to deal with online harms

Several countries now offer at-home vaginal swabs to detect HPV status in place of traditional cervical cancer screening, but urine tests seem to work just as well

Eczema can be very distressing for children – and now it seems that its roots may at least partly lie in their mothers experiencing high levels of stress during pregnancy

A fossil discovered in Patagonia shows a 3.5-metre-long reptile from the late Cretaceous with large, serrated teeth capable of slicing through muscle

People used to experience an "unhappiness hump" around midlife, but declining youth mental health may mean that is no longer the case

Categorising the Denisovans as a distinct species would allow us to more comprehensively trace our own evolutionary development

We are happy to inject synthetic substances into our faces in ever-increasing amounts, but reluctant to eat plant-based or cultivated fake meats. This inconsistent attitude has implications for sustainability, says Sophie Attwood

Why did Christianity grow from a niche sect to a religion followed by billions? Michael Marshall explores Alice Roberts’s latest book Domination

In this latest instalment of Future Chronicles, an imagined history of future inventions, Rowan Hooper explores the advances that meant an optical telescope with an effective mirror size of 3000 km could be built on the moon

Feedback is alerted by a reader to the latest effort to create a quantum computer that can factorise extremely large numbers, and discovers an abrupt shift to K9 tech

The new book "Gemini and Mercury Remastered" features iconic images from the earliest days of human space exploration

The history of carbon dioxide’s role in life on Earth combined with a call to climate action makes for compelling reading, finds Chris Stokel-Walker

Sky watchers are in for a treat next month, says Abigail Beall, when there is a total lunar eclipse visible in much of the world

Clues to our planet’s dramatic past are in the layers of rocks we might overlook. A great guide shows why they deserve our attention, says James Dinneen

The brightest and most colourful glowing plants yet have been created by injecting phosphorescent chemicals directly into the leaves, but it is little more than a cheap gimmick

A 165-million-year-old ankylosaur from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco was covered in an array of extreme armour including body spikes fused to its skeleton, a feature never seen in any dinosaur before

A system that generates images by inducing random fluctuations in a laser beam could slash energy use compared with standard AI tools

The aurora borealis has been remarkably bright recently. Space weather physicist Tamitha Skov reveals what's going on and how worried we should be about a major solar storm

After three consecutive and dramatic failed missions, SpaceX has successfully launched Starship to space in a key step for NASA's lunar programme

Performing CPR on a space station in microgravity involves doing a handstand on a person's chest and pushing against the walls with your legs – but now researchers say there is a better way

A comparison of the thylacine’s genome to other marsupials has revealed that the creatures lost genetic diversity long before humans and dingoes arrived in Australia

The rare sailback houndshark, which has an unusually large dorsal fin, was first described by scientists in 1973. That was the last record of its existence, until now

New research tapping into decades-old concepts is challenging the notion that the only way to treat cancer is to kill every last cancer cell. Instead, scientists suggest, we could try a little persuasion

Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal unexpectedly high levels of carbon dioxide coming off 3I/ATLAS, giving another clue to the comet’s origin

African countries imported a record number of solar panels in the past year, which could be the beginning of a green energy boom on the continent

Electronic devices that dissolve in water could make it easier to create and recycle technology prototypes – and they could even inspire more sustainable commercial devices

Microbes found buried deep in Siberian permafrost may be able to survive over extremely long timescales using protein repair genes

Scientists have long and studiously avoided claiming that other animals have language. Now, using the power of AI, they are on the verge of deciphering one

Millions of people may experience accelerated ageing as climate change drives more frequent and intense hot weather

In 2020, the world produced more than enough calories to feed the global population, but only half of those calories reached people’s plates due to rising meat and biofuel production

An ancient skull has finally shown us what the Denisovans looked like. Now it turns out they, not Neanderthals, might be our closest relatives, redrawing our family tree and transforming the hunt for Ancestor X

A study of more than 6 million children finds that exposure to antibiotics in the womb or early in life tends not to increase the risk of autoimmunity – but the relationship is complicated

Immersing yourself in nature has repeatedly been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, but it could also have serious benefits for your physical health

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has assembled a team of researchers to make communication networks more secure by injecting them with quantumness

A social media notification popping up on your phone can be quite distracting, even if you don't engage with it

A quantum computer that uses particles of light took about two dozen microseconds to complete a calculation that may take trillions of trillions of trillions of years on the world’s best supercomputers

An analysis of active US mines finds they already collect virtually all of the minerals the country needs for batteries, solar panels and wind turbines – but these critical minerals mostly go to waste

Dark-coloured cars can make a measurable difference on nearby air temperature, and in cities of millions the effect can add up and noticeably increase how hot it feels

The failure to agree a global treaty on plastic pollution highlights how the UN’s requirement for unanimity holds back environmental policy, but there are better ways to make progress

Astronomers have picked up evidence of an Earth-sized world, distinct from the previously hypothesised Planet Nine and Planet X, that might be warping the orbits of objects beyond Neptune

Previous research in macaques suggests that part of the brain reorganises itself when a limb is removed, but now a study in people has turned that idea on its head

Edible microbeads made of vitamin E and seaweed helped rats lose weight by absorbing excess fat in their guts

A billion or so years into its evolution, the icy dwarf planet Ceres may have had the right conditions to sustain life, which indicates the solar system may be more habitable than we thought

A new formulation of cement reflects and emits heat more effectively than normal Portland cement, so it stays much cooler on a hot day

Psychiatric medicine hasn't changed much since the 1960s. Could blocking the effects of chronic inflammation on the brain be the step change we need?

Rearing our unusually underdeveloped young may account for the evolution of language. Michael Marshall is intrigued, but wants more evidence from Madeleine Beekman's The Origin of Language

Free and unimpeded internet access is no longer a convenience or a luxury. It is high time it was made a human right enshrined in law, says philosopher Merten Reglitz

Inveterate cyclist Matt Sparkes, who has been knocked off his bike by human-driven cars several times, wonders if the arrival of driverless cars in London is a good thing - or a bad one

Feedback is horrified to discover that the owner of one of the internet's favourite cats, Pépito, has taken the crypto route…

Robin Hammond's photographs show the conservation battle to eradicate three species introduced to New Zealand, in order to protect the island nation's birds

We need to think about the purpose of noise in our daily lives and environments. Chris Stokel-Walker discovers a great guide in Chris Berdik's Clamor

Human delivers an unusually clear picture of Homo sapiens as a species shaped by climate, animals, plants, other hominins and the interactions of its own nomadic groups. Bethan Ackerley is enthralled

Research reveals that managers often take advantage of their hardest-working members of staff. David Robson has some advice for a frustrated reader

Frank Wilczek has one of the most brilliant and original minds in theoretical physics, having come up with the idea of time crystals among much else. Where is his curiosity taking him now?

A 1989 experiment offered the promise of nuclear fusion without the need for high temperatures, but this "cold fusion" was quickly debunked. Now, some of the techniques involved have been resurrected in a new experiment that could actually improve efforts to achieve practical fusion power

A dietary supplement made from engineered yeast could help honeybees thrive despite the declining availability of high-quality pollen in their environment

An AI model trained on years of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory can predict the sun’s future appearance and potentially flag dangerous solar flares

Foods like goat or sheep milk and buckwheat are behind many cases of severe allergic reactions, but may not be listed as such on a product's label

Engineers have developed a class of origami structures that unfold in one smooth motion to create flower-like shapes, which could have applications in space

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new moon that is small and dim in orbit around Uranus. The discovery brings the planet's total to 29, and scientists say there are probably more to be found

A device that has been likened to a pacemaker for the brain has given a man with severe depression great relief

Collecting the materials needed for renewable technologies is causing enormous environmental damage and could soon extend to the deep sea and even asteroids. Innovative solutions are poised to turn the crisis around

Directing radio waves at the olfactory system deep within our head seems to boost our ability to detect different smells

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen an extra 15 parts per million since 1960 due to the declining ability of the land and sea to soak up excess CO2

Many answers to online research questions show signs of being generated by AI chatbots, raising doubts about the validity of behavioural data collected this way

A six-week period of extraordinary heat in 2024 melted 62 gigatonnes of ice on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, obliterating all previous melt records

From depression to dementia, we are now realising the profound impacts of long-term inflammation on the brain. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms is unlocking new treatments to protect our cognitive function and mental health

Nine species of fungi and bacteria have been found in cocoa beans that produce fine chocolate, and this knowledge could help producers develop better flavours

Defining the fundamental units of electricity used to require two finicky quantum devices – but now scientists have found an easier way to standardise our electrical measurements

The record-breaking global temperatures seen in late 2023 may have emerged partly because of unusual conditions in the Pacific Ocean in the preceding years

Large dark matter particles hitting Jupiter’s largest moon would form distinctive craters in its icy surface, and upcoming space missions might be able to spot them

Women's arteries seem to be stiffer if they have had covid-19, with the same effect not being found among men

A quantum broadcasting system would end up sending slightly different information to every receiver – and efforts to sidestep this problem are too inefficient for practical use

Connecting tubes between bacteria and a kind of microbe called archaea may reflect a symbiotic relationship that led to complex cells more than 2 billion years ago

A bright flash of radio waves from 3 billion years after the big bang is illuminating parts of the universe that astronomers can’t normally see

An extremely precise detection method for single electrons, which pins down the particles with a resolution of trillionths of a second, may provide a valuable building block for future quantum technologies

People who have similar neural responses to movie clips are more likely to become friends, indicating bonds form based off shared thought processes

Virus-based treatments are already approved to treat several types of cancer, and combining them with bacteria could make them even more effective

Adding energy to a group of ultracold atoms should make them fly away from each other with many different energies, but quantum effects can counteract this

For the first time in 35 years, scientists have analysed a new type of all-carbon molecule at room temperature, without the extreme conditions usually required to stabilise this type of molecule

In sub-Saharan African youths diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, 65 per cent do not have antibodies or genetic risks associated with the disease, suggesting they have a novel non-autoimmune subtype of the disorder

A brain-computer interface has enabled people with paralysis to turn their thoughts directly into words, requiring less effort than older techniques where a physical attempt at speech had to be made

For a century, quantum theory has passed every experimental test, but physicists can’t agree on how to use it to paint a picture of our reality – or even whether that is possible

As the planet heats up, the atmosphere is holding more moisture – and this is resulting in more days with weather conditions close to the limits of survivability

As the planet heats up, the atmosphere is holding more moisture – and this is resulting in more days with weather conditions close to the limits of survivability

Children seem to be less likely to be obese if they live at high altitude, which may be due to its effect on metabolism and appetite

A study of 150,000 people with ADHD in Sweden confirms that drugs taken to manage the condition have wider benefits beyond improving immediate symptoms

mRNA drugs might be able to protect against a huge range of viruses by turning on key parts of our innate defences against infection

A material made from bacterial cellulose alters its insulating properties in dry and moist conditions, which could help you stay a comfortable temperature whatever the weather

What's the best exercise to help you sleep better? Grace Wade investigates – and makes some unexpected discoveries

Kate Douglas discovers plans for a "nature revolution" in Marc Berman's fascinating and ambitious new book Nature and the Mind