New Scientist

New Scientist covers the latest developments in science and technology that will impact your world. New Scientist employs and commissions the best writers in their fields from all over the world. Our editorial team provide cutting-edge news, award-winning features and reports, written in concise and clear language that puts discoveries and advances in the context of everyday life today and in the future.

Elsewhere on New Scientist

Autistic enough • We have missed autism in girls for decades – and the time for change is now

New Scientist

Brought in from the cold

Global twist to China’s cleaner air • Efforts to improve air quality in China may have inadvertently increased the rate of warming by removing the masking effect of aerosol pollution, finds Madeleine Cuff

Fossil leg deepens mystery of our tiny cousin Paranthropus

Black holes could solve space puzzle • Strange little red dots in the early universe have mystified researchers, but two studies may now have found an answer, finds Jonathan O’Callaghan

Monkeys use crafty techniques to get junk food from tourists

The surprising origin of the anus in animals

On the edge of the quantum realm • What lies beyond quantum mechanics? We now have mathematical tools to help us look

Auroras seen on Neptune for the first time

Does aspirin have potential as an anti-cancer drug? • Research into whether aspirin could help prevent certain types of cancer is ongoing, with mixed results, finds Fiona MacRae

Big spots may help giraffes keep warm

Quantum computers are on track to solve knotty problems

Microalgae could offset emissions • Increased photosynthesis could counteract carbon released from peatland as world warms

Wood made seethrough using rice and egg whites

An early hint of cosmic dawn has been seen in a distant galaxy

Extraordinary wasp may have used its rear end to trap flies

Pregnancy’s lasting effects • Bodily changes that occur during pregnancy can take months or possibly even years to be reverted, finds Carissa Wong

Fake pills ease PMS even if you know they are placebos

Even moderate CO₂ emissions could lead to 7°C of warming

Smartphones show benefits for kids • Phone use may boost well-being and social connections in children – if they avoid social media

Strange clicking shows sharks aren’t silent after all

A wing and a prayer • Would you want an AI flying your holiday jet? A cost-cutting plan may give you no choice. But it’s a risk too far, argues Paul Marks

Guest columnist • Feeling your (brain) age Many of us have a brain that is older than our years. But there are plenty of things you can do to counteract this, says neuroscience columnist Helen Thomson

Fashion blues

Breaking new ground • Why are we driven to explore so widely and to challenge ourselves? A fascinating, bracing book unpicks the complex story, says Elle Hunt

At what cost? • Drug trials are vital to medicine, but what of those taking part? A new book gives them a voice, finds Alexandra Thompson

New Scientist recommends

The film column • Copy that Life is hard on icy Niflheim, and the colonists need expendables: humans who take the flak, die and get cloned. In Mickey 17, our hero is left for dead, only to return and find he has been “reprinted”. What then, asks Simon Ings

Your letters

Autism’s missing girls • For decades, science has overlooked autistic girls and women. Now we are finally waking up to the biases in autism research – and what we have discovered changes everything, says neuroscientist Gina Rippon

Autism prevalence among 8-year-olds in the US

Culture shock • The discovery that animal culture is far more...