We're living in a period where the gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and it's continuing to widen. But inequality is nothing new. In a new study researchers compared house size distributions from more than 1,000 sites around the...
Wealth inequality began shaping human societies more than 10,000 years ago, long before the rise of ancient empires or the invention of writing. That's according to a new study that challenges traditional views that disparities in wealth...
Ice cores that record 1.2 million years of Earth’s atmosphere are on their way to Europe to be analysed, and an Australian drilling team is hoping to go even further back in time
Researchers may have answered one of space science's long-running questions -- and it could change our understanding of how life began. Carbon-rich asteroids are abundant in space yet make up less than 5 per cent of meteorites found on...
Whether for cooking, heating, as a light source or for making tools -- it is assumed that fire was essential for the survival of people in the Ice Age. However, it is puzzling that hardly any well-preserved evidence of fireplaces from...
We’ve now figured out how to culture chocolate in the lab. The breakthrough could help with spiralling cocoa costs, and may even lead to tastier treats with more nutritional value
The U.S. National Science Foundation today launched a 24/7 crisis intervention helpline for members of the NSF research community who have experienced sexual assault, sexual harassment, or stalking. The NSF Safer Science Helpline is an...
Scientists have used gene editing to produce artificial electrical synapses in mice, where they can be targeted to make the animals more sociable or reduce their risk of OCD-like symptoms
Researchers funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation have created a molecular nanocage that captures the bulk of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, found in water — and it works better than traditional filtering...
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to know which of the quantum computers now in development have the best chance of being game-changing technologies
Proposed cuts would wipe out NOAA’s Ocean and Atmospheric Research office among a raft of other reductions to one of the main scientific agencies of the US
Bioreactors housing methane-eating bacteria could offer a portable, off-grid solution for soaking up methane leaks from sites like landfills and coal mines
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are commonly found in the bodies of short-beaked common dolphins that get stranded on UK beaches, and are linked to the animals’ risk of infectious diseases
Culture editor Alison Flood rounds up the book club’s thoughts on our latest read, the weird and wild Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva. Warning: spoilers ahead
In this extract from the classic science fiction novel, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet Ringworld’s protagonist Louis Wu, as he travels a future Earth
Schrödinger called his metaphorical cat “quite ridiculous” but the quantum weirdness it represents has become a useful benchmark for the quantum computing industry, finds our quantum columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
Globally, only 14 per cent of the plastic we use is recycled – but some countries achieve higher rates and new technologies could change the picture drastically
A newly discovered settlement in the north-western Nile delta was built by the Egyptian New Kingdom perhaps 3500 years ago and included a temple dedicated to pharaoh Ramesses II
Solvej Balle's newly translated speculative novel, On the Calculation of Volume (parts I and II), examines the numbing effects of time through the old trope of being stuck in a single day. It is an effective meditation
An AI analysis finds that since the 1970s, speeches by US Congress members have shifted to favour language such as “fake news” and “mislead” over words such as “science” and “statistics”
In a cave overlooking the ocean on the southern coast of South Africa, archaeologists discovered thousands of stone tools, created by ancient humans roughly 20,000 years ago. By examining tiny details in the chipped edges of the blades...
There have been several claims of quantum computers performing at a level impossible to match with a classical computer – most of which have been refuted. Could there be a mathematical reason why this keeps happening?
Cellulose, the main component of paper, can be turned into clear, waterproof objects such as cups that are almost indistinguishable from plastic, but break down more quickly
Larry Niven's Ringworld won him the Hugo and Nebula awards when it was published 55 years ago. As the New Scientist Book Club embarks on a reread, Emily H. Wilson looks at how it holds up
Nafis Hasan's Metastasis is a deep dive into the economics and politics of cancer treatment. This makes for a dense and difficult read, but one that is well worth the effort
In the latest instalment of our Future Chronicles column, which explores an imagined history of inventions yet to come, Rowan Hooper reveals how brain-computer interface let us travel to Mars via robot avatars in the late 2020s
Cuneiform, the oldest identified writing system, defied deciphering – until 1857. What happened then makes a terrific read, in Joshua Hammer's The Mesopotamian Riddle
Amazon is aiming to launch its first operational satellites today to provide speedy internet connections in remote regions, but it will still take some time to catch up with its main competitor, SpaceX's Starlink
A map of part of a mouse brain, which is expected to be generalisable to people, could help scientists understand behaviours, consciousness and even what it means to be human
Ancient rocks reveal there were several humid spells in Arabia’s past, which might have given early hominins a route out of Africa long before our genus migrated
Computers that use photons rather than electrons to manipulate data promise greater speed and energy efficiency, and the technology is developing rapidly
Evidence shows that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometers (km) of open water to reach the Mediterranean island of Malta 8,500 years ago, a thousand years before the arrival of the first farmers.
A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these animals.
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $20 million grant to expand the NSF CloudBank, an initiative designed to accelerate science and engineering research through access to commercial cloud computing. Building upon the...