Jacob, an 11-year-old lion, has defied expectations by surviving for years after losing a leg – now we know his success is down to an innovative hunting strategy

Archaeologists have compiled the most detailed map yet of roads throughout the Roman Empire in AD 150, totalling almost 300,000 kilometres in length

Many plants including cocoa, coffee and avocado cannot be gene-edited but a technique involving grafting could change that, opening the door to more productive and nutritious varieties

The identity of a skeleton buried under a Budapest convent has been confirmed as Béla of Macsó, a Hungarian royal murdered in a 13th-century power struggle, and archaeologists have pieced together how the attack unfolded

It is widely accepted that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, but now researchers say our measurements of the mysterious force driving that may be wrong and that the universe began to slow 1.5 billion years ago – but other scientists disagree

Using the Helios-1 quantum computer, researchers have used a record-breaking number of error-proof qubits to run the first and biggest quantum simulation of a model for perfect conductivity

A planet is about to be destroyed by the collapse of a binary star system in Slow Gods, Claire North’s first venture into classic science fiction. Read it! says Emily H. Wilson

Feedback discovers a robot that can mimic Turkish ice cream vendors, who are known for playing tricks on their customers. Researchers concluded that customers, perhaps predictably, don't trust it

Neurologically, the flexibility of the future promised by liberal democracy can be a challenge because it brings with it uncertainty. But there are solutions, say Florence Gaub and Liya Yu

Lise Barnéoud's Hidden Guests shows how this fascinating new field brings with it profound implications for medicine, and even what it means to be human, finds Helen Thomson

The battle to save the magnificent but endangered Amur tiger detailed in Jonathan Slaght's Tigers Between Empires is an inspiring look at what collaboration across borders can achieve, finds Adam Weymouth

A mathematical model suggests that when a pair of black holes gets quantum entangled, this can give rise to a lumpy space-time tunnel between them

Neuroscientist Matthew Sacchet is revealing how mastering meditation can not only enable transcendental states of bliss, but also reshape how we experience pain and emotion

Researchers warn that the alga Karenia cristata, which has killed around a million animals in Australian waters in one of the biggest algal blooms ever seen, could harm marine life elsewhere

Biochemical evidence suggests Norse people settled in Iceland almost 70 years before the accepted arrival date of the 870s, and didn't chop down the island's forests

Initiatives on the table at COP30 aim to evaluate which countries are most vulnerable, support efforts to clean up industries and pay for the protection of tropical forests

Getting covid-19 for the first time slightly increased the risk of heart inflammation, blood clots and bleeding disorders among children, whereas being vaccinated against the virus was much safer and sometimes protective

How do we know the speed of light – and why does it have a speed limit at all? Leah Crane explores the history of one of the most important numbers in the universe

In the largest genetic analysis of polycystic ovary syndrome to date, scientists have identified new variants linked to the condition, which could help us treat it more effectively

Recent outages have revealed how vulnerable the internet is, but there seems to be no official plan in the event of a catastrophic failure. Meet the team of hackers who are ready to jump into action

Expectations are low for the UN climate conference in Belém, Brazil, but the host’s pragmatic approach could help make progress on implementation

Building a working quantum internet would require overcoming a host of technical challenges, but researchers who have built one of the most advanced quantum networks to date say they think it is possible

A distant black hole has been caught releasing the brightest flare ever, which is the result of it ripping apart and devouring an enormous star

Enamel does not naturally regenerate, which can lead to painful cavities, but a gel that harnesses some of the properties of saliva could restore the hard, shiny layer to teeth

Alzheimer's-related cognitive decline could be slowed by taking as few as 3000 steps a day, possibly due to the effects of regular exercise on brain health

Hektoria glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula retreated 25 kilometres in just 15 months. Its rapid melt could have implications for other glaciers and the rate of sea level rise

Anthropologist Christopher Bae has recently suggested we add two new species of ancient human to our family tree. The plans break the conventions for how species should be named – but Bae argues the rules themselves are flawed

There are now over 10,000 satellites in orbit, more than at any point in history, and this growing number is starting to reveal how solar storms could disrupt internet mega constellations like SpaceX's Starlink

All over the world people are ageing more rapidly and succumbing to diseases that typically affected the elderly. But there are ways to turn back the clock on your biological age

The very first generation of stars, called Population III stars, are mostly expected to be too distant to see directly – but astronomers may have found some for the very first time

For the first time, video footage has captured orcas in the Gulf of California hunting young great white sharks, using a trick to flip them over, paralise them and get at their energy-rich livers

The uncertainty inherent to quantum mechanics has long left physicists wondering whether the observations we make on the quantum level reflect reality - a new test suggests they do

We now have only the second high-quality genome from an ancient Denisovan human, which reveals there were more populations of this species than we thought

A sheet of fabric that is three times stronger than Kevlar could stop a bullet despite being just 1.8 millimetres thick, thanks to the addition of carbon nanotubes that keep its molecules aligned

Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator

Rats given a faecal transplant from exuberant toddlers showed more exploratory behaviour, supporting the idea that gut bacteria might affect children’s emotional development

From Claire North’s new novel Slow Gods to a 10th anniversary edition of a brilliant Adrian Tchaikovsky book, there’s lots to watch out for in November’s science fiction

The New Scientist Book Club has various issues with Masud Husain's prize-winning popular science book about neurology

In this passage from the opening of Grace Chan’s sci-fi novel, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to her protagonists as they spend time in a virtual utopia which is becoming increasingly tempting in a dying world

Grace Chan, author of Every Version of You, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, explores the philosophical implications of the choices her characters make

The green mummified remains of a teenager buried in Italy 200 to 400 years ago have given us new insights into the preservative properties of copper

Interstellar objects like 3I/ATLAS are exciting, but there is no reason to claim that they are evidence of alien spacecraft – sometimes a comet is just comet, says Robin George Andrews

Standard techniques for removing kidney stones often require repeated surgery, but a magnetic gel seems to make the process more efficient

President Donald Trump appears to have ordered a return to nuclear testing after decades of uneasy but effective treaties banning the practice – but will it actually happen?

Palaeontologists have argued for decades over whether certain fossils are young Tyrannosaurus rex or another species entirely – now they have strong evidence that the diminutive Nanotyrannus really existed

A new type of germanium superconductor could allow classical and quantum chips to be built into one device, creating better and more reliable quantum computers.

People who receive stem cell therapy within a week of their first heart attack have nearly a 60 per cent lower risk of developing heart failure years later

One of the Milky Way’s smallest galactic neighbours seems to have a supermassive black hole at its centre, upending assumptions that it was dominated by dark matter

Photographer Tim Flach's new book Feline explores the mysterious and irresistible world of cats, from the domesticated to the wild, and why we love them

Ochre artefacts found in Crimea show signs of having been used for drawing, adding to evidence that Neanderthals used pigments in symbolic ways

Can sea slugs form abstract thoughts? Do we dare to see any "purpose" in evolution? Is the subjective just a complicated form of the objective? Nikolay Kukushkin's One Hand Clapping is a bold voyage around the mysteries of the human mind, finds Thomas Lewton

Feedback comes across a YouTuber's efforts to build a large language model in Minecraft and is impressed at the scale of it – even if it doesn't quite live up to its promise to blow your mind "in spectacular fashion"

COP's negotiations this month will focus on money for climate change adaptation. While more money is essential, even a big increase won't be enough on its own and we need to face up to this, warns Susannah Fisher

The US government's decision to stop supporting a telescope facility that would have given us unprecedented insight into the early universe is calamitous, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

The internet is not what it once was, with so many apps and websites mere shadows of themselves. Thankfully, the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee, has a fix that we should adopt

Enshittification is a term coined by Cory Doctorow in 2022. In his new book, Doctorow lays out how tech companies have made our lives progressively worse, finds Matthew Sparkes

In Ed Sayers's breathtaking documentary, a global community of film-makers capture the wildlife in their local areas. It's a bold departure from the glossy perspective of traditional nature documentaries, says Simon Ings

The man who invented the web is aware of the many issues it faces, from problematic social media use to the rise of unfettered AI. He also has a plan to remedy the situation

Computers built with analogue circuits promise huge speed and efficiency gains over ordinary computers, but normally at the cost of accuracy. Now, an analogue computer designed to carry out calculations that are key to AI training could fix that

During sleep, your brain cleans itself by flushing through cerebrospinal fluid to prevent damage to brain cells. If you're lacking in sleep, this happens when you are awake - and seems to cause momentary lapses in attention

During sleep, your brain cleans itself by flushing through cerebrospinal fluid to prevent damage to brain cells. If you're lacking in sleep, this happens when you are awake – and seems to cause momentary lapses in attention

Combining a quantum-inspired algorithm and quantum information processing technologies could enable researchers to measure masses of cosmic objects that bend light almost imperceptibly

The Trump administration has laid off government workers integral to major public health surveys, meaning the country will lack crucial information on births, deaths and illnesses nationwide

Plague, leprosy, smallpox and other diseases didn't jump from animals to humans when we thought. Ancient DNA is revealing where they come from and how they changed history

The monster hurricane pummelling Jamaica is powered by abnormal sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean, which were made at least 500 times more likely by global warming

The monster hurricane pummelling Jamaica is powered by abnormal sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean, which were made at least 500 times more likely by global warming

Among over-50s, women seem to require less exercise than men to get the same reduction in heart disease risk, suggesting health guidelines need to be updated

If we admit that quantum numbers are the true essence of reality – not particles, space or time – then a surprising and beautiful new vision of reality opens up to us

It took a long time for zero to be recognised as a number at all, let alone one of the most powerful ones – but now it’s clear that every number is made up of zeroes, says Jacob Aron

Fibromyalgia, which causes chronic pain all over the body, is poorly understood, but two studies – made up of millions of participants – are helping us get to the roots of the condition

A four-fingered robotic hand built from Lego Mindstorms pieces can push, pull and grip with almost as much force as a leading 3D-printed hand

Birds all over the world break into a dawn chorus every morning – now experiments in zebra finches suggest both a mechanistic and a functional explanation for this phenomenon

A growing body of research suggests testosterone replacement therapy can alleviate menopausal symptoms such as a decrease in libido, mood swings and brain fog. But some in the field are sceptical

Scientists are finding out how coffee beans are transformed when they pass through the guts of Asian palm civets in the hope of replicating the process without using animals

Buried underground near the surface, frozen regions of Mars could have tiny hidden channels full of liquid water, which could be a habitable environment for microscopic organisms

Microbes high in Earth’s stratosphere produce pigments to protect them from UV light – so similar molecules could be biosignatures of life elsewhere in the galaxy

Solar electricity is growing rapidly, but can it really dominate the global energy system? Here is what it will take for us to power the planet on sunshine

Human embryos formed with in vitro fertilisation can develop genetic abnormalities in the time between genetic testing and implantation – though this may not affect their viability

Lithium-ion batteries are prone to catching fire when damaged, but a simple change of electrolyte material can put a stop to the vicious chemical cycle that causes the problem

So far, immune cells that have been engineered to kill cancers, known as CAR T-cells, haven’t worked well against solid cancers - but a study in mice suggests that could soon change

Studies have suggested that Wegovy directly boosts heart health, beyond just the benefits of losing weight, and now that has been demonstrated in a robust trial in people

In the run-up to this year's COP in Brazil, Madeleine Cuff explores The Climate Diplomat, a poignant account by the late Peter Betts, a negotiator who showed what diplomacy can achieve

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

Future Chronicles is our regular speculative look at inventions yet to come. In this latest installment, we journey to 2050, when technology had been developed so that criminals could be monitored at home.

The White House Effect is a distressing look back at how President George H. W. Bush came to abandon his climate ambitions. It is essential viewing and a glimpse at a world that could have been, says Bethan Ackerley

When it comes to boosting mental health and even improving performance, team sports and group exercise come out on top, finds Grace Wade

There is nothing stopping the wealthiest people from attempting to alter the world's atmosphere – this must not be allowed to happen

Feedback delights in a 2018 paper that takes care to warn us it reveals “nothing like super interesting”, and embarks on a quest to find more examples of disarming honesty

The prevailing wisdom is that horror fans lack empathy and are addicted to adrenaline. My research shows otherwise, says Coltan Scrivner

Skin irritation, such as through eczema, promotes hair growth in mice, which prompted scientists to create a treatment that works via similar pathways, with no discomfort required

There are hundreds of coherent theories attempting to explain the origins of experience. Robert Lawrence Kuhn explores what they reveal about free will, artificial intelligence and life after death

A new quantum computing protocol may be able to augment a standard technique for understanding molecules in chemistry, biomedicine and materials science

Classical swine fever reduces productivity and harms animal welfare, but pigs have now been genetically edited to make them completely resistant to the disease

Future smartphones and other devices could have colour e-paper displays, thanks to a new technique that lets such screens display video while minimising energy usage

The microbes that take hold in our bodies during early life have long-term effects on our brain health. Helen Thomson investigates how to get kids’ microbiomes off to the best start.

Antidepressants can be very effective, but they also come with side effects that vary from one drug to the next, supporting the idea of more personalised prescriptions

An exclusive New Scientist survey of leading scientists reveals widespread concern that schemes to tweak Earth’s atmosphere could launch within decades in a risky bid to cool the planet

Confining and rotating extremely cold atoms or molecules within atomic “Ferris wheels” made from laser light could test relativity’s predictions on the quantum scale

We have more satellites than ever before, but when they burn up they create a new kind of air pollution. Evidence is now revealing what effects this could have and how to tackle it