New Scientist Podcasts

When you bring a giant magnet to Mars, apocalyptic eruptions are just the beginning. In an attempt to suck out all of the iron from the red planet, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte end up shattering it like an Easter egg.

Their new cosmic plaything, a U-shaped Wile E. Coyote-esque magnet, is used in various different ways for the purposes of complete annihilation. 

With the help of science journalist and volcanologist Robin George Andrews, the team squeeze the core out like it’s toothpaste, turn the magnet into a projectile, bring multiple magnets to the fray to create a work of cosmic art and even hollow out the planet to fill it up with… SPIDERS!

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode.

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Hurricane season in the Atlantic ocean is set to be extremely active, according to forecasts. Expect to see as many as 25 named tropical storms, with many likely to become hurricanes. Find out how high sea surface temperatures and shifting El Niño conditions are creating the perfect conditions for a potentially record breaking season. 

The sun’s magnetic field may function quite differently to Earth’s. We’ve long assumed it originates from deep within but it seems the sun has a different way of doing things.

Promethium is a lesser known and rare element on the periodic table that is incredibly hard to find naturally. And even though scientists know how to produce it, it’s still incredibly hard to study, as the radioactive material decays quickly. But that’s all changing as researchers have figured out a way to keep it stable for longer. What will they learn about this mysterious element?

Dwarf plants found on the Japanese island of Yakushima may have evolved to be small thanks to deer. Sika deer are the island’s resident herbivore and their voracious appetites seem to have driven the evolution of many local plant species – giving us new insights into how unrelated organisms evolve together.

Plus: How Argentine ants get better at learning the more caffeine you feed them; why the Greek army has been suiting up in extremely heavy Bronze Age armour; and the most powerful pulse of X-rays ever seen on Earth.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests James Dinneen, Leah Crane, Alex Wilkins and Molly Glick. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Links: https://newscientist.com/survey

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From Dune to The Three Body Problem, is science fiction having a moment? Attention to the genre, as well as TV and films based on it, seems to have exploded in the past few years. With sci-fi often getting a bad rap, it’s time to ditch the snobbery and celebrate its complexity and diversity. And who better to do this with than New Scientist’s science fiction columnist – and our former editor – Emily H. Wilson?

Wilson is a journalist and author. In 2023 she published Inanna, the first of The Sumerians, a trilogy set in the ancient civilisation of Sumer. The books are an epic, speculative retelling of some of the oldest myths ever recorded.

In this episode, Rowan Hooper speaks to Wilson about the enduring popularity of the genre, and why you should be proud to call yourself a science fiction fan. Plus, the pair share loads of recommendations and explore sci-fi’s many different sub-genres, from climate fiction to cyberpunk.

You can learn more about Emily’s trilogy, The Sumerians,here.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

Books mentioned:

- Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu

- Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky

- Ancillary Justice, Anne Leckie

- Annie Bot, Sierra Greer

- Dune, Frank Herbert

- The Chrysalids, John Wyndham

- Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham

- The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

- Neuromancer, William Gibson

-Burning Chrome, William Gibson

- Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson

- Red Moon, Kim Stanley Robinson

- 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson

- The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson

- Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

- Patternmaster, Octavia Butler

- The Broken Earth, N. K. Jemisin

- Middlemarch, George Eliot

- Impressions of Theophrastus Such, George Eliot

- Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky

- Autonomous, Annalee Newitz

- Excession, Iain M. Banks

- A World Out of Time, Larry Niven

- Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

- The Ballad of Halo Jones, Alan Moore and Ian Gibson

- Tank Girl, Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett

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There are signs that aliens might be harnessing the power of stars in our galaxy to fuel their civilisations. Dyson spheres are structures that surround entire stars to absorb their energy. Although these are just hypothetical, researchers have detected hints of their existence. But aliens aren’t the only possible explanation.

Being able to freeze human brain tissue could be a game-changer for medical research. While freezing brains is easy, thawing them out without damaging the tissue is much harder. But now a method involving a cocktail of chemical ingredients seems to have solved the problem.. 

The largest ever ‘ecoacoustic’ survey is being conducted throughout the forests of Costa Rica. Sound recordings of various habitats, from degraded pastures to regenerating forests, are being gathered to assess the biodiversity and health of the country’s ecosystems. Hear some of the amazing soundscapes that have been captured for the survey.

Orchids may share food with their offspring. Lab experiments have shown for the first time that parent orchids may be using fungal pathways – the mycorrhizal network – to send vital sugars to seedlings that cluster around them.

Ancient Egyptians were reliant on the Nile river to transport materials used to build the world famous pyramids. But many of those pyramids are built on inhospitable, arid land, far from the Nile. So how did they get the materials there? Geoscientists may have uncovered an ancient clue.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Rowan Hooper discuss with guests Jacob Aron, Alexandra Thompson, James Dinneen and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Galaxies come in only a few shapes, which are all very round looking. You’ve got spirals and you’ve got blobs. Not content with this boring assortment, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte want to shake things up a bit.

First up they want to give our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, more arms. One, two… eight? As many as possible. But they don’t stop at “octogalaxy”. They also ponder on what it would take to defy the laws of physics and create a giraffe-shaped galaxy.

Aided by Vivian U, an astronomer at UC Irvine, the team discusses whether smashing galaxies together would help in their quest, how shooting black holes into orbit via rail gun may create interesting patterns and whether the galaxy sculpture can be made using dark matter.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Do whales have their own alphabet? We’ve long thought the clicking sounds that sperm whales make is their way of chatting to each other, but those clicks may be even more sophisticated than we realised. After analysing whale recordings, researchers suggest the different click patterns are complex enough to form an alphabet – the closest thing to human communication we’ve yet seen in animals. 

We know very little about dark energy – and it turns out we may know even less than we thought. This mysterious force, which accelerates the expansion of the universe, may be changing in an unexpected way, calling our entire understanding of cosmology into question. This discovery by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument in Arizona could make room for some exciting new physics.

There’s a bird flu outbreak in the US, spreading through herds of dairy cows in nine states. One dairy worker in Texas has even tested positive, though has also recovered. Underreporting and insufficient testing mean we know very little about how fast the virus is spreading. And as officials warn against drinking raw milk, how worried should we be? 

Quantum batteries, while mostly still theoretical, could make charging your phone or electric car unimaginably fast. Researchers are looking at the quickest way to charge these batteries, harnessing the advantages of quantumness – like charging in two different places at once. 

Plus: Which breeds of cats live the longest; good climate news as renewable energy crowds out gas and coal; why reaching out to long-lost-friends is so hard.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Molly Glick, Grace Wade and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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How do we understand the stakes of climate change, and communicate them? As we’re facing the consequences of climate change and our historical inaction as a species, how do we come to terms with the reality and uncertainty of our situation?

In H is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z, Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert breaks things down for us, alphabetically. She dissects the narratives around climate change, from sobering facts about our warming planet, to innovations to fuel our optimism.

In this episode, Kolbert reminds us how dangerous our current situation is, and what we are missing in this fight – including gaps in our understanding of how fast the climate is changing. Plus, the role of narratives in shaping how we decide to act. 

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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Last year marked the hottest on record, shattering previous temperature benchmarks across both land and sea. The rapid escalation – seemingly at odds with the expected cooling after coming out of a La Niña cycle – has prompted scientists to question if climate change is accelerating beyond our models' predictions 

Just eight minutes of anger can significantly impair blood vessel function and potentially increase the risk of a heart attack. A study has looked into the physiological mechanisms of how intense emotions can affect cardiovascular health.

GPS jamming continues to increase in European airspace, a concerning trend that has intensified since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now, attacks in Estonia have prompted one airline to completely abandon flights to the city of Tartu. We discuss the implications for civilian and military aviation and the potential need for alternative navigation technologies.

Birds do it, bees do it and so do many species of fly – it’s pollination. In fact, migrating flies play an even bigger role in pollination than we thought. These tiny travelers contribute to ecological diversity and resilience by transporting pollen over vast distances.

Plus: A newly discovered sensory organ in praying mantises, used specifically for tasting leaves; the possibility of carbon negative cement; and just how thick is the boundary between air and water?

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Madeline Cuff, Clare Wilson, Jeremy Hsu, and Michael Le Page. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Did you miss out on the recent total eclipse? Don’t fear, we’ve got the solution. We bring you the constant solar eclipse.

Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane have decided not to destroy the Sun this time. Instead, they just want to block it from view at all times. But it’s all in the name of good – so everyone gets to experience the same “primal fear” Leah did when she first saw an eclipse.

What starts with a modest-sized sunshade in low-Earth orbit creating 5 second eclipses, quickly turns into moving entire planets at the risk of all life on Earth. With the help of astronomer Bruce Macintosh from UC Santa Cruz, they also create the biggest piece of art ever made and call on the help of the world’s knitters.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#247

What does India’s election season mean for climate change? Last year India overtook the European Union as the third largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases. And as voters head to the polls in the middle of an intense heat wave, it’s critical whichever party wins continues to push towards the goal of net zero emissions by 2070. But as the country continues to invest in expanding coal power, is that target achievable?

Animals of all kinds communicate in so many different ways, but what are they saying to each other? Arik Kershenbaum is the author of Why Animals Talk,and has been studying everything from wolves to gibbons in their natural habitats. He explains what he’s learnt about animal communication and shares some of the sounds he’s captured during his travels. Hear the haunting howl of a lone wolf, the crescendo of a gibbon chorus and more.

There’s no such thing as empty space. Quantum theory says where there looks to be nothing, there is always something – namely a soup of particles and antiparticles flickering in and out of existence. And researchers have, for the first time, used these quantum fluctuations to create tiny, self-assembling devices that can manipulate light.

Botanists at Kew Gardens have mapped what’s known as a “tree of life” for over 9500 species of flowering plants. This work gives us the most detailed look at the origins and evolutionary history of these plants to date – and could tell us about their future too.

After 5 months of radio silence, NASA has made contact with its Voyager 1 spacecraft again. We recap the epic story of the Voyager mission, which launched 46 years ago, and find out how engineers managed to fix a spacecraft that’s currently 15 billion miles away in interstellar space.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Rowan Hooper discuss with guests James Dinneen, Karmela Padavic-Callaghan and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Consciousness event: newscientist.com/newyorkmind

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How much faith should we be putting in artificial intelligence? As large language models and generative AI have become increasingly powerful in recent years, their makers are pushing the narrative that AI is a solution to many of the world’s problems.

But Meredith Broussard says we’re not there yet, if we even get there at all. Broussard is the author of More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech.She coined the term “technochauvinism,” which speaks to a pro-technology bias humans often have, where we believe technological solutions are superior to anything else. 

In this episode, she tells New Scientist’s Sophie Bushwick that our trust in AI systems could have devastating consequences.

From discriminatory mortgage-approval algorithms, to the racial biases of facial recognition technology, to the misinformation that appears in chatbots like ChatGPT, Broussard explains why there’s no such thing as trustworthy AI. And she discusses the need for greater education about AI, to help us separate reality from marketing.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#246

Our best climate models for helping limit global warming to 1.5oC may have wildly overestimated our chances. To reach this goal, models are relying heavily on geological carbon storage, a technology that removes carbon from the atmosphere and places it underground. But it may not be nearly as effective as models have suggested, making the task of decarbonising much more difficult. Do we need to rethink our approach?

Intel has announced it has constructed the world’s biggest computer modelled on the human brain and nervous system. This neuromorphic computer, called Hala Point, may only be the size of a microwave oven, but its innovative technology could someday run artificial intelligence that’s smarter and more energy efficient.

After a blast of sound from a keyboard shot through her whole body, experimental musician Lola De La Mata was hit with debilitating tinnitus. It was so profound it left her with vertigo, difficulty walking, speech problems and unable to make music. Years later, she is now putting a spotlight on the condition with a new album, Oceans on Azimuth. Hear her story and music from the album in a special feature. Plus, read Clare Wilson’s recent feature about the future of tinnitus and hearing loss.

Do birds dream? They just might. Birds’ vocal cords move in their sleep, as if they’re singing, but don’t actually make a sound. Now researchers have managed to use these vocal movements to synthesise their songs and hear them aloud – with surprising results. Does this prove that birds dream?

Plus: The biggest stellar mass black hole ever found is very close by; fossil hunters uncover the jawbone of an extinct reptile that may have been the biggest ever to swim the oceans; how skin wounds can cause gut problems.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Madeleine Cuff, Matt Sparkes and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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How do you destroy a black hole? Turns out they're pretty tough cookies.

Kicking off a brand new series of Dead Planets Society, Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane take on the universe's most powerful adversaries. With the help of their cosmic toolbelt and black hole astronomer Allison Kirkpatrick at the University of Kansas, they test all the destructive ideas they can think of.

Whether it’s throwing masses of TNT at it, blasting it with a t-shirt gun full of white holes, loading it up with a multiverse worth of matter, or sending it back in time – they try everythingto kill a black hole. Will they succeed?

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode…

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#245

The multiverse may be bigger than we thought. The idea that we exist in just one of a massive collection of alternate universes has really captured the public imagination in the last decade. But now Hugh Everett’s 60-year-old “many worlds interpretation”, based on quantum mechanics, has been upgraded.

The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction but we may be able to save it. Scientists plan to use frozen genes from 12 now dead rhinos to rebuild the entire subspecies. But how do you turn skin cells into actual rhinos and will it work?

A single-celled alga has done something thought to have happened just three times in the entire history of life on Earth. Braarudosphaera bigelowii has formed a unique bond with a bacterium living inside it and has developed a new cellular structure. This organelle may be why this alga became so successful and widespread.

We’ve got a new way of looking for aliens without having to go planet hopping. The method involves scouting the universe for planets that are close together and look similar to each other – hinting that an advanced civilisation may have colonised them.

We’ve had the orbits of the planets turned into music, we’ve heard the sonification of data and even heard what a black hole sounds like. This time, it’s the turn of mushrooms. Musician and artist Brian D’Souza has used a process called biosonification to produce musical tones from Shiitake and Reishi mushrooms. Learn more about Brian D’Souza here. And get details of his live performance on April 19th here.

Plus, we mark the passing this week of Peter Higgs, who first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson and later won the Nobel Prize for his efforts.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Rowan Hooper discuss with guests Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Michael Le Page and Corryn Wetzel. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Half of the human population undergoes the menstrual cycle for a significant proportion of their lifetimes, yet periods remain a taboo topic in public and private life. And that makes it harder both to prioritise necessary scientific research into conditions like endometriosis and for people to understand the basics of how their bodies work.

Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruationisgynaecologist Jen Gunter’s latest book. In this practical guide, she dispels social, historical and medical myths about menstruation and offers answers to your biggest period-related questions – including why we menstruate in the first place, when a missed period is a health concern and “how heavy is too heavy?”

In this episode, Christie Taylor speaks to Gunter about how humans are part of an exclusive club of menstruators in the animal kingdom, the persisting social stigma around menstruation and menopause, and why these processes remain under-researched in science despite their vast importance. Plus, a call from Gunter to take seriously the very individual and sometimes painful experiences people may have with their periods, while also creating more access to menstrual care.  

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#244

Researchers have successfully turned lymph nodes into miniature livers that help filter the blood of mice, pigs and other animals – and now, trials are beginning in humans. If successful, the groundbreaking medical procedure could prove life-saving for thousands of people waiting for liver transplants around the world. So far, no complications have been seen from the procedure, but it will be several months before we know if the treatment is working as hoped in the first of 12 trial participants with end-stage liver disease.

Even on a remote island untouched by tourists, fishing, pollution and development, the climate crisis is still wreaking havoc on the coral of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Reporter James Woodford visited One Tree Island, a refuge ordinarily spared from the reef’s past catastrophic bleaching events, and discovered that this year’s marine heatwave has managed to reach even that protected spot. There, he spoke with coral experts and now shares both the science and the difficult experience of witnessing environmental devastation. 

Russia is suspected of launching a record-breaking GPS jamming attack, a form of electronic warfare that’s been on the rise in parts of Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Lasting more than 63 hours, the newest attack impacted thousands of aircraft, which rely on GPS for navigation. Is the threat set to continue – and how can GPS-reliant airlines adjust?

Snakes might be self-aware just like humans – another animal to add to the growing list. The mirror test, which investigates how animals respond to versions of their reflections, has long been used to detect self-recognition in everything from orangutans to roosters and horses. To test snakes, however, a smell-based method had to be invented, which garter snakes have passed. Does this change our understanding of reptiles?

Plus: Detecting what may be the smallest galaxy in the known universe; how babies recognise spoken nursery rhymes heard in the womb; and why you should “yell at” your misbehaving robot.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Grace Wade, James Woodford, Jeremy Hsu and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in March 2021.

From beetle explosions to the deep dark depths of the ocean, this episode is all about escape.

The team discusses the amazing (and sometimes disgusting) way bombardier beetles escape predators.

They explain what it takes for an object to reach escape velocity, celebrating the mathematical mind of Katherine Johnson while they’re at it.

And they explore the daunting realms of free-diving, and the lengths people will go to for a bit of peace and quiet.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell.

Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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As we age our immune systems do too, making us less able to fight infections and more prone to chronic inflammation. But a team of scientists has been able to reverse these effects in mice, rejuvenating their immune systems by targeting their stem cells. But there’s a long road to trying the same thing in humans.

Have you seen the incredible new black hole image? Just a couple of years since the Event Horizon Telescope’s first, fuzzy image of Sagittarius A* – the black hole at the centre of our galaxy – a new picture offers a closer look. The stunning image released this week features the spiralling lines of Sgr A*’s magnetic field, which is seeding new questions about how black holes behave.

Millions of tonnes of unexploded ordnance litter the globe from conflicts both ongoing and long past. And as time passes these bombs are not getting any less dangerous – new research finds some are actually becoming more prone to exploding.

Physicists have theorised that there is a particle called the graviton that carries the force of gravity – much like a photon carries light, or a gluon carries the strong nuclear force. But the graviton has so far remained elusive. Now, researchers think they’ve seen one, or at least a particle with the correct properties to be a graviton. How this experiment unfolded, and why even a possible sighting is exciting to theorists.

Plus: How a bad night’s sleep makes you feel older; why therapy horses get stressed when they don’t have a choice; and a robot that can design, build and test paper planes.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests Grace Wade, Alex Wilkins, Michael Le Page and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Fish you wear like a gas mask, moss that turns a robot sentient and critters that will eat your rash – all these oddities and more cohabit on the planet Vesta, the setting for the animated miniseries Scavengers Reign, where a group of human space travellers must innovate with what they find in the landscape to survive. While all this sounds fantastical, there are many parallels with Earth’s ecosystem and the way we regularly borrow technology from the natural world. 

New Scientist physics reporter Karmela Padavic-Callaghan often writes about biomimicry and bio-inspired devices and has been fascinated by the symbiotic, connected ecosystem the show portrays.In this episode, they speak to biophysicist Saad Bhamla and ecologist Meghan Brown about the the science that underpins the series and how surprisingly close to reality some of the ecological interactions are. Plus how even fantastical fiction can shape a scientific mind.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#242

Human population growth is coming to an end. The global population is expected to peak between 2060 and 2080, then start falling. Many countries will have much lower birth rates than would be needed to support ageing populations. These demographic projections have major implications for the way our societies function, including immigration and transportation, and what kinds of policies and systems we need. 

Remember Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons? Humanoid robots capable of many different tasks may be one step closer after two big announcements from chip-making giant NVIDIA. The company revealed what it calls its most powerful AI chip yet, as well as a new computer for humanoid robots called Jetson Thor.

A group of California orcas known as transient killer whales have been observed using a never-before seen way of hunting down prey in the deep waters of the open ocean. Until now, their distance from the coast had kept this group’s hunting methods mysterious. It turns out these orcas have ingenious and brutal methods for hunting whale calves and other mammals. 

Two big maths stories this week. The Abel prize has gone to mathematician Michel Talagrand for his groundbreaking work in understanding randomness. His work has been integral in everything from weather forecasts to large language models and quantum computers. Plus, a group of mathematicians plans to direct a computer to prove the famously complex final theorem of the long-dead Pierre de Fermat– which could advance the field of mathematics research immensely if successful. 

Plus: Archaeologists uncover a perfectly preserved ancient settlement in Britain; bad news for life in the universe as one in twelve stars may be gobbling up their orbiting planets; why teenagers’ sweat is particularly smelly.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Jeremy Hsu, Chen Ly and Alex Wilkins. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in March 2021.

From the quickest animal in the world to the fastest supercomputer, this episode is all about speed.

Opening with the cries of the peregrine falcon, the team finds out how the bird has evolved to endure flying at more than 200mph.

Then they explain how scientists, starting from Galileo, attempted to measure the speed limit of the universe, the speed of light, and how Einstein understood what it meant.

And they explore the mind-blowing capabilities of Fugaku, the fastest supercomputer in the world.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell.

Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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#241

More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza face widespread hunger, disease and injury as the war quickly becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in modern memory. Even once the war ends, the devastating physical and emotional health consequences will be felt for many years to come, especially by children. And aid groups like UNICEF and the World Health Organization have no long-term plans to meet the post-war health needs of the population.

Gravity on Mars may occasionally be strong enough to stir up the oceans on Earth, even from 225 million kilometres away. A team led by researchers at the University of Sydney says Mars could be responsible for creating tiny wobbles in Earth’s orbit – just enough to slightly warm the oceans.

What if every piece of music ever recorded was replaced by AI-generated Taylor Swift covers? Researchers dreamed up this implausible-sounding thought-experiment to demonstrate the vulnerability of data to AI corruption – but is this actually a risk?

Phonon lasers, which use ultra-concentrated sound vibrations instead of light, may one day help us with things like medical imaging and deep-sea monitoring. A team has now created the most powerful phonon laser ever made. It’s brighter and narrower than its competition and can stay on far longer. But challenges remain in moving this technology out of the lab. 

Plus: Why Jupiter’s moon Europa may be less likely to host life than scientists hoped; how North America’s threatened sequoia trees are thriving thousands of miles from home; and why pythons may be the most sustainable meat for us to eat.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests Grace Wade, Jacob Aron, Matthew Sparkes and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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There’s no moon like our moon. A celestial body twinned with Earth, the moon guides the tides, stabilises our climate, leads the rhythms of animal behaviour and has long been a source of wonder and awe. 

Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are, is a new book from science journalist Rebecca Boyle. In it she takes an intimate look at our satellite and how it’s influenced everything from our species’ understanding of long cycles of time to the development of science itself.

In this episode, Christie Taylor speaks to Boyle about many wonderful and lesser known facts about the moon, like the magic of solar eclipses and how it’s only by chance that we get to experience them. Plus, how the moon may have been responsible for war-time tragedy – and even our own evolution.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#240

A major step has been made toward bringing woolly mammoths back from extinction – sort of. The company Colossal has the ambitious goal of bringing its first baby mammoth into the world by 2028. And its newest advance, announced this week, is in turning adult Asian elephant cells into stem cells. But it’s still a long way from here to the company’s vision of cold-adapted elephants fighting climate change in the Arctic – or even that 2028 baby mammoth. 

When did humans begin to affect the Earth’s systems enough to mark the beginning of a new geological era? The Anthropocene is often informally used to describe the current era of Earth’s geological timeline, one in which human activity has reshaped the planet – and some geologists have been lobbying to say it began officially in 1950, with the first detectable nuclear fallout. But in a leaked decision that shocked many, scientists have apparently voted not to make the Anthropocene textbook-official yet. But the story doesn’t end there.

US Army researchers are trying to figure out if AI can help them make better decisions during conflict. Using commercial chatbots powered by models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, the US military has been letting AI call the shots in the midst of battle – in the video game Starcraft II. Is the technology good enough? 

Bumblebees may be capable of culture. It’s a finding that’s causing much debate in the scientific community. Researchers challenged bees to complete a tricky puzzle box, which the bees could not do without being shown how – but the bees who were trained to solve the puzzle then quickly taught their hivemates. Teaching others something they can’t do alone could be considered cumulative culture, which was thought to be unique to humans. Is it time to rethink our exceptionalism?

Plus: How the creation of new strains of cheese mould could lead to brand new flavours of blue cheese and even new drugs; how microplastics found in our bodies may increase heart disease risk; why some white dwarfs look younger than they are – with consequences for astronomy.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Michael Le Page, Chen Ly, Jeremy Hsu and Sofia Quaglia. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021.

Keeping you cosy this week is an episode all about warmth - emotional, physiological and geological.

We have an unexpected start to the show, with bees taking the spotlight, but it turns out these cold-blooded little insects can generate immense warmth when necessary.

The team then takes a much bigger view of warmth, discussing the heat of the planet, and of the many uses of geothermal energy.

Finally they wrap up by finding out what it takes to make a robot seem warm and friendly.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell. Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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#239

Two decades ago, following the Human Genome Project’s release of a first draft in 2001, genetic testing was set to revolutionise healthcare. “Personalised medicine” would give us better treatments for serious conditions, clear pictures of our risks and individualised healthcare recommendations. But despite all the genetic tests available, that healthcare revolution has not exactly come to fruition. Amid news that genetic testing poster child firm 23andMe has hit financial troubles, we ask whether personalised medicine was overhyped.

Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras once established strict mathematical rules for what constitutes pleasing music – those rules involve ratios and harmonies that were the basis of much of Western music theory. But comprehensive new research finds people’s preferences have little to do with Pythagoras’ rules.

The invention of the numeral zero to represent nothing is a cornerstone of some of our greatest accomplishments as a species, like calculus, literature and philosophy. Now researchers have figured out how our brains comprehend the idea of nothing – and it may have started as registering the absence of predators, prey, or even weather conditions. The experiment finds where “nothing” lives in our brain and traces back the invention of the numeral zero to our animal roots.

If you want to make friends with a dog but are wary of petting them, there is a way. All you need to do is follow them around and copy their movements. Research into this behavioural synchronisation could prove beneficial to helping nervous pups connect better with people.

Plus: Making plankton poo heavier with clay – for the environment; YouTube’s recommendation algorithm seems to have stopped inadvertently radicalising people; the specific chemical compounds that make an orange taste orangey.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Jacob Aron, James Woodford and Sam Wong. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Music credit:

“Bonang,” Wesleyan University Virtual Instrument Museum 2.0, accessed February 29th, 2024, https://wesomeka.wesleyan.edu/vim2/items/show/3

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Freezing temperatures, dust storms, radiation, marsquakes – living on Mars right now would be hellish. And getting there remains a multi-year journey. But what if we couldmake it habitable? Could we one day build settlements on the Red Planet or send human scientists to search for life?

That’s the premise of the TV series For All Mankind, which explores a future where the space race continued after the moon landing and humanity kept spreading out across space. But in the name of a good story, real science occasionally took the backstage. 

In this episode, TV columnist Bethan Ackerley speaks to NASA Astronaut Garrett Reisman, who was also a consultant on the show, as well as planetary scientist Tanya Harrison who’s worked on multiple NASA missions to Mars. Between them, they explore how far off we really are from living on Mars, what it would take to surmount the remaining challenges – and why it’s still a dream worth pursuing in the real world.

Want more? Read Bethan’s review of For All Mankind Season 4.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#238

ADHD is a condition that affects millions of people and is marked by impulsivity, restlessness and attention difficulties. But how did ADHD evolve in humans and why did it stick around? Through the help of a video game, a study shows that these traits might be beneficial when foraging for food. 

In 2023, we hit record after record when it comes to high temperatures on Earth, including in the oceans and seas. From the surface to 2000 metres down, it was hard to find a part of the ocean not affected. This week, about 5000 scientists gathered in New Orleans for the American Geophysical Union’s biennial Ocean Sciences Meeting. Heat was the one thing on everyone’s mind, as researchers grapple to understand the drivers and consequences these new records have – but also look for promising solutions.

The future of AI deepfake technology is not looking good. You might remember the infamous fake images of Taylor Swift that included non-consensual, intimate images of her on social media. Or the fake robotcall that mimicked President Joe Biden’s voice and discouraged voters from coming to the polls. As voice, picture and video generating technologies become cheaper and easier to use, can anything be done to prevent more harm?

A “useless” structure on the ovary may in fact be key to fertility in mammals. The structure, a tiny series of tubes called the rete ovarii, was first discovered in 1870  and doesn’t even appear in modern textbooks. Now, researchers accidentally stumbled back onto it – and suggest that the rete ovarii may help control ovulation and the menopause. 

Plus: Humpback whales’ huge and specialised larynxes; physicists are excited about a new “unicorn” in the world of black holes; the “dogbot” that becomes three-legged to open doors.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Chen Ly, James Dinneen, Jeremy Hsu and Michael Le Page. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021.

Prepare to feel relaxed, tingly and amazed all in the space of 20 minutes. This episode is all about sound.

We start with the musical tones of an elephant trumpeting, followed by a recording from Cornell University’s Elephant Listening Project, showing how they communicate at an infrasonic frequency, which humans can’t ordinarily detect.

The team then attempts to send shivers down your spine by recreating ASMR, explaining why some people enjoy the sound of whispering, rustling crisp packets or apple biting.

They also share a range of audio illusions, and close the show with the soothing sounds of white noise, created by Stephane Pigeon from www.mynoise.net.

Shepard Tone and Binaural Beats courtesy of Alexander from www.orangefreesounds.com under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Bethan Ackerley and Timothy Revell. Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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#237

Glaucoma, which can cause blindness by damaging the optic nerve, may be reversible. Researchers have managed to coax new optic nerve cells to grow in mice, partly restoring sight in some. How the treatment works through an eyeball injection and why, for humans, prevention and early detection are still the best options.

Black holes, just like planets and stars, spin. But they may be spinning a lot slower than we thought. When black holes gobble up matter around them, they start spinning faster and we’ve largely used this understanding to guess their speed. But new research also weighs the slowing effect of massive gas jets that black holes emit – revealing that many may have slowed dramatically since their births. How these new estimates of spin also offer insights into a black hole’s history. 

What if we could generate solar power in space, far more efficiently than on Earth – and then beam it down to our houses? An MIT experiment has managed to do one of the most crucial steps of that science fiction-seeming process, converting electricity from a satellite into microwaves that were then successfully received by a collector in California. How these microwaves could supply the power grid on Earth and help ween us off of fossil fuels – if they can overcome some major hurdles. 

Apes like to playfully tease each other, just like humans do. While their methods may be a bit different from ours – poking, hitting, pulling on hair and stealing – it looks like they’re often doing it for fun, rather than to harass or assert dominance. This new finding could explain why humans evolved to enjoy jokes.

Plus: A weird cooling quirk of Antarctica’s atmosphere; the microbes that make your tea taste delicious; and the flamboyant love languages of cuttlefish, scorpions and even dog-loving humans.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss with guests Michael Le Page, Alex Wilkins and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Real tech billionaires are reportedly building secret bunkers in case of post-apocalyptic societal collapse. It’s a frightening prospect, a world where only the super rich survive catastrophe. But it’s a world one author is exploring in her latest novel.

Naomi Alderman is the prize-winning and best-selling author of The Power. Her latest book The Future imagines a world where billionaires survive a world-shaking cataclysm, only to find out they’re not as in charge of events as they think they are. 

The Futurehas been the centrepiece of the New Scientist book club. In this episode culture and comment editor Alison Flood asks Naomi all about it. They explore her motivations for writing the book, the real mysteries of human evolutionary history and why Alderman thinks artificial intelligence can’t actually predict what’s to come for humanity.

This conversation contains some spoilers.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#236

This week marks two major milestones in the world of fusion. In 2022 a fusion experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created more power than was required to sustain it – now, the same team has improved this record by 25 per cent, releasing almost twice the energy that was put in. Meanwhile, the UK’s JET reactor set a new world record for total energy output from any fusion reaction, just before it shut down for good late last year. Why these two milestones inch us closer to practical, sustainable fusion energy – but still leave a significant distance to go.

A historic drought has caused a shipping traffic jam in the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. Record low levels of water mean fewer ships can pass through the intricate system of locks that carry them across the narrow strip of land. As climate change increases the likelihood of extreme drought, how could this impact both the cost of shipping goods and Panama’s economy?

Microdosing LSD may not have psychedelic effects, but it still causes noticeable changes in the brain. Researchers gave people tiny amounts of the drug while measuring their brain activity and noticed their brain signals became far more complex, even though they didn’t feel any hallucinatory effects. What this study tells us about the relationship between consciousness and neural complexity.

Magma flowing into a giant crack formed by this year’s volcanic eruption in Iceland was caught moving at a rate of 7400 cubic metres per second – the fastest ever recorded for this kind of event. The kilometres-long crack first began producing eruptions in December last year, and another began just this week. So what’s next for the people living nearby? 

Plus: The asteroid Bennu may be a chunk of an ocean world; a new, lightning-dense thunderstorm spotted by satellites; rediscovering the bizarre-looking sharp-snouted Somali worm lizard after more than 90 years.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests Matt Sparkes, James Dinneen, Grace Wade and Michael Le Page. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021.

From some of the lightest creatures on earth, to the heaviest things in the cosmos, this episode is all about mass.

It’s a magical opening to the show as the team discusses a group of insects called fairy wasps which are so light it’s near impossible to weigh them.

They then turn to matters of massive proportions, discussing a little thing called dark matter.

Finally the team wraps up by looking at the surprising, and slightly hilarious ways that a kilogram is measured.

On the podcast are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell.

Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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#235

In very rare cases, Alzheimer’s disease could be transmitted from person to person during medical procedures. This finding comes as five people have developed the disease after receiving contaminated human growth hormone injections in the late 1950s to early 1980s – a practice that is now banned. What this finding means for medical settings and why most people don’t need to be concerned.  

Elon Musk’s mind-reading brain implant company Neuralink is carrying out its first human trial. The volunteer who has received the surgically implanted device and is now, Musk said earlier this week, “recovering well”. Neuralink promises to connect users to their smartphones and computers, reading brain signals and translating a person’s intentions into text or other functions. While this isn’t the first device of its kind, it is the only one being marketed as a consumer technology device, as opposed to a medical device. 

Contrails, the streams of white vapour that form behind planes in the sky, are to blame for a huge proportion of air travel’s impact on the climate. But there’s good news. Small changes in altitude may be sufficient to reduce their formation – and implementing these changes may be easier than we thought. Plus why flying at night has a bigger climate impact.

Tiny tornadoes have been discovered inside the egg cells of fruit flies. These twisters circulate the jelly-like cytoplasm inside the cells and could be essential to the successful reproduction of these fruit flies. Excitingly, these tornadoes may be happening in the cells of other animals too – just not humans.

Plus: Revealing which dogs live the longest; how an army of Twitter bots spreaded fake news about 2023’s Chinese spy balloon incident; an ancient gadget that turns fibres into rope.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Chen Ly, Matt Sparkes, James Dinneen and Alex Wilkins. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Very few places on our planet appear untouchedby humans, but in those that do, nature is still very much in charge – and the scenery is breathtaking. In the new BBC series Wilderness with Simon Reeve, journalist Simone Reeve takes us into the heart of Earth's last great wild areas, including the Congo Basin rainforest, Patagonia, the Coral Triangle and the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa.

In this episode of CultureLab, TV columnist Bethan Ackerley asks Simon about the series and his many exciting expeditions, including meeting bonobos in the depths of the Congo and a “staggering experience” trekking up the South Patagonia icefield. We hear about his meetings with Indigenous peoples and what they can teach us about living more intune with nature. And we discover why now is the time to focus on Earth’s wildernesses.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#234

Is AI really ready to take our jobs? A team looked at whether AI image recognition could replace tasks like checking price tags on items or looking at the pupils of patients in surgery.  The researchers found only a small fraction of these vision-reliant tasks could be cost-effectively taken over by AI – for now, anyway.

There’s an old myth that singing to your plants helps them grow – apparently this actually works with fungus. A pair of experiments has found that fungus grows much more quickly when it’s blasted with an 80 decibel tone, compared to fungus that receives the silent treatment. 

Roe v Wade, the landmark US Supreme Court decision that protected the right to an abortion, was overturned in 2022. Many states passed new restrictions on the procedure in the years that followed, some total or near-total – meaning few exceptions for pregnancies that result from sexual assault. New estimates suggest that more than 65,000 people in those states have since experienced rape-related pregnancy and been unable to legally receive abortion care where they live.

Chickpeas have been grown in moon dust for the first time. Moon dust is low on nutrients and full of toxic heavy metals, making it a difficult place for plants to grow.Butby turning the dust into more of an ecosystem, complete with fungi and earthworms, a team has gotten a generation of chickpeas to survive and even flower. And given chickpeas are more nutrient dense than other plants we’ve managed to grow so far, this is great news if we ever want to settle on the lunar surface.

Plus: Maybe owls can actually turn their heads around, 360 degrees. A robot avatar that lets you see and feel what it sees and feels. And a bacteria that turns from prey to predator when the temperature drops.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Jeremy Hsu, James Woodford, Grace Wade and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021.

This episode is all about music, so today’s journey of escapism comes complete with odd, relaxing, soothing and interesting sounds to guide you through.

The team opens with the sounds of animals, specifically the singing - if you can call it that - of gorillas, and the jazzy birdsong of the thrush.

They then treat you to the sounds of data sonification, courtesy of Milton Mermikides, who translates motion into music, like the swinging of a pendulum, the crystallisation of salt, or the orbits of planets.

Finally they tackle the small matter of just why exactly it is we humans love music so much.

On the podcast are Rowan Hooper, Bethan Ackerley and Timothy Revell.

Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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#233

A cloned rhesus monkey named ReTro is said to be in good health more than three years after his birth – a landmark achievement, as no other rhesus clone has lived to adulthood.. However, the method used to clone ReTro used fetal cells, a method that cannot create identical clones of adult primates. The method could still be useful for medical research. 

Fermented foods are meant to be healthy and good for our guts, but there’s a problem. Researchers have found antibiotic resistant bacteria in a small pilot study of some fermented foods. In vulnerable people, these bacteria could damage the gut and cause more severe health issues – and be resistant to antibiotic treatment. This ancient practice may need an update to deal with a modern problem.

Is it a black hole, is it a neutron star? No it’s a… mystery. A strange object has been found in the depths of space that could be the smallest black hole we’ve ever detected, or a neutron star that’s larger than we thought possible. Either result would be interesting, offering exciting new insights into our understanding of the universe.

A new type of computer promises to be more efficient than your standard PC. Normal Computing’s device uses the laws of thermodynamics – and tiny, random fluctuations in electrical current – to compute. And maybe most importantly, it’s already been used to solve some difficult problems.

Tardigrades are some of the hardiest creatures on the planet. These microscopic “water bears” can survive harsh conditions by entering a deep, dehydrated state of hibernation. And now researchers have figured out how they do it.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Sam Wong, James Woodford, Alex Wilkins, Karmela Padavic-Callaghan and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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NASA astronaut Christina Koch not only took part in the first ever all-female spacewalks, but she also holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, after spending 328 days on board the International Space Station.

So what does it take to live in space for such a long time, what does it mean to be a record-breaking astronaut – and how do you get used to gravity again when you finally come back home? New Scientist space reporter Leah Crane asks Chrstina all of these questions and more in a special interview for CultureLab. 

Plus: the surprising sport of human bowling, what things smell like when you leave planet Earth and how Christina’s sights are now set on the Moon as she prepares for the Artemis 2 mission.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#232

During pregnancy the brain undergoes profound changes – almost every part of the cortex thins out and loses volume by the third trimester. It’s such a big change that you can tell if someone’s pregnant just by looking at a scan of their brain. How researchers discovered these changes and why they might be occurring.

A massive, ancient group of cities has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest using lasers. It’s the biggest pre-Columbian urban area ever found in the Amazon and parts of it date back further than any other settlement too. So why have we only just found it and why was it abandoned?

Where does stuff go when it’s sucked into a black hole? Based on Stephen Hawking’s theory that black holes slowly evaporate, most of it just disappears. But in physics, information about that matter can’t just disappear – so what’s going on? Many teams have tried to solve this paradox, but an intriguing new idea may bring us closer to an answer. Once we develop a whole range of groundbreaking new spacecraft technology, that is.

Every single year, hammer corals change their sex, swapping between male and female. While many animals, including corals, change their sex across their lifetimes, this clockwork, routine schedule is quite unusual. But it turns out a habit of change might be useful to help ensure successful reproduction in the ocean. 

Plus: Making lithium-ion batteries with 70 per cent less lithium – with help from AI; staving off the amphibian apocalypse with fungus-resistant frogs; and the discovery of the oldest known fossil skin.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Alex Wilkins, Grace Wade, Michael Le Page and Sophie Bushwick. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in January 2021.

The theme of this episode is alliances - human, biological and atomic. We start by celebrating the amazing properties of lichen, the symbiotic relationships it forms, how it shaped the earth and simply how beautiful it is to look at.

Then we explore how carbon is able to create such an incredibly diverse range of materials, including soot, diamonds and graphite.

We wrap up by delving into the life of renowned Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, the world’s greatest human alliance maker, who wrote research papers with over 500 mathematicians.

On the podcast are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell.

Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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#231

It’s a new year and that means new science. But what (that we know so far) does 2024 hold? 

On the space front, agencies around the world have as many as 13 missions to Earth’s moon, while Japan’s MMX mission will launch to take samples from the Martian moon Phobos. NASA will finally launch the Europa Clipper mission to explore Jupiter’s ocean-bearing moon. 

On the technology front, Europe’s first ever exascale supercomputer, capable of performing billions of operations per second – only the third officially recognised such machine in the world, and an extraordinary tool for physicists, mathematicians and even AI development. Plus why we’re increasingly close to the time when quantum computers may break encryption as we know it.

And while 2023 was officially the hottest year on record, 2024 is poised to be even hotter, thanks to even higher concentrations of greenhouse gases and more months of El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean. How this combination should leave us expecting the unexpected when it comes to drought and rainfall, while nations grapple with the renewable energy and fossil fuel transition pledges they made at 2023’s COP28 climate summit. 

And why the story isn’t over for hormone-mimicking weight loss injections like Ozempic and Wegovy – or the many similar drugs that are following close on their heels.

Host Christie Taylor discusses all of this and more with guests Leah Crane, Matthew Sparkes, James Dinneen and Clare Wilson. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com/2024preview.

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This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in January 2021.

An episode of Escape Pod all about understanding. We start by discussing the self-awareness of dolphins and whales, and the intricacies of their language and vocalisations. Then we marvel at the seemingly impossible abilities of gymnasts and ballerinas, most notably Simone Biles who performed a legendary triple double. And then we take a look at the Chinese board game Go - a game with more possible moves than there are atoms in the universe.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell. Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts

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What was your favorite science story of 2023? Was it the rise of orca-involved boat sinkings? Or maybe the successful landing of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission at the moon’s south pole? 

This week, it’s the second and final part of our annual event about the best science stories of the year, with a roundup of some of the good news, animal news and all-around most important stories of 2023. Like how researchers discovered the high-tech material called graphene can also occur naturally…and did, deep in the Earth, 3 billion years ago. Or how the World Health Organization ended the global health emergency declaration for covid-19.

Plus, wonders from the animal kingdom: innovative bird nests made of anti-bird spikes,  cooperation between dolphins and fishermen in Brazil and the incredible clogging power of hagfish slime.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this and more with guests Clare Wilson, Sam Wong, and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

And if you’re still looking for more of the best stories from 2023, enjoy our best features free December 27-31. 

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Are you looking forward to catching up on some reading over the holiday season? Or perhaps you are on the prowl for book recommendations after receiving a few literary gift cards? If so, you are in luck – this episode is all about the books we think you’ll love to read.

In this episode of CultureLab, culture and comment editor Alison Flood appears in her role as professional bookworm to share some of her favorite reads of the year. From a sobering story of life in the human-polluted ocean (narrated by a dolphin) to science fiction that takes you to parallel worlds, to the real story of the world’s longest study of happiness. 

The full list of Alison’s recommendations (and a few from host Christie Taylor) is below. 

Non-fiction

The Good Life: lessons from the world’s longest scientific study of happiness by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz

Being Human: How our biology shaped world history by Lewis Dartnell

Of Time and Turtles: Mending the world, shell by shattered shell by Sy Montgomery

The Power of Trees: How ancient forests can save us if we let them by Peter Wohlleben

Enchantment: Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age by Katherine May

Elderflora: A modern history of ancient trees by Jared Farmer

The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship with the cosmos by Jaime Green

Breathe: Tackling the climate emergency by Sadiq Khan

Wasteland: The dirty truth about what we throw away, where it goes, and why it matters by Oliver Franklin-Wallis

Fire Weather: A true story from a hotter world by John Vaillant

Fiction

In Ascension by Martin McInnes

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

The Future by Naomi Alderman

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Pod by Laline Paull

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#229

Your hands are heavier than you think. Beer goggles aren’t real. And many water utilities in the United Kingdom still use dowsing to find leaks in pipes. 

It’s the first part of our annual best-in-show of science stories from the year, with a roundup of some of the funniest and most futuristic-feeling headlines from 2023. Like the Euclid Space Telescope’s successful start to a mission that will map the sky and offer new insights into dark matter and the very structure of the universe. And a half-synthetic yeast that might feel (half) at home in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Or how generative AI has gone so far as to flood the submissions of the magazineClarkesworld with too many badly written science fiction stories.

Plus, why a handful of doctors swallowed the heads of LEGO toys.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this and more with guests Clare Wilson, Sam Wong and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Composer Erland Cooper is known for playful, innovative, experimental projects. For example, he buried the only audio copy of a 2021 composition – then left treasure hunt clues for people to try to find it. Which one couple, eventually, did.

In this episode of CultureLab, Cooper talks to writer Arwa Haider about his newest album, Folded Landscapes, where he is deep in conversation with the environment and our changing climate. The movements of the piece were recorded with the Scottish Ensemble chamber orchestra, in both sub-zero temperatures and a sweltering studio. He then exposed the audio master tape to the sun on the UK’s hottest day in history, in July of last year. 

Cooper describes encasing recording equipment in ice, recreating the acoustics of glacial caves in Norway’s Svalbard, and why he prefers a slower kind of activism in the name of celebrating and cherishing the natural world and encouraging change. 

Read Arwa Haider’s full piece about Cooper’s work.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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Cannabis is one of the oldest products of human cultivation. And as it becomes increasingly legal for medical and recreational use around the world, its popularity is growing as well – even as researchers, limited by government prohibitions of the past and present, race to understand how the hundreds of chemicals in pot actually affect us and what the benefits and risks may be.

But the object of all this research is itself changing: cannabis consumed today is more than ten times more potent than pot of the past. And even as we begin to understand the breathtaking environmental costs of cultivation – both legal and illicit – we’re already finding ways we might harvest its benefits without even growing a single plant. 

In the final episode of this three-part special series on the science of cannabis, Christie Taylor visits what the future may hold for hemp and how this plant fits into society writ large. From meaningful regulation of driving while stoned to tweaking that distinctive but controversial skunky odor and the high tech promise of making CBD in yeast.

Learn more:The team at New Scientist investigates cannabis and the brain, the environmental cost of growing cannabis and other questions in this special reporting series. Visit newscientist.com/cannabis

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#228

We have a new, landmark climate deal, signalling the beginning of the end of fossil fuels. But even as the announcement at COP28 includes commitments for some of the most pressing issues, including giving money to countries most affected by climate change and setting goals for more renewables, some critics aren’t satisfied. With weak language around  “transitioning away from” fossil fuels, does the deal go far enough?

The first ever scientific discoveries have been made by an artificial intelligence chatbot, says Google Deepmind. The company claims its new large language model FunSearch has discovered solutions to mathematical and computing problems. Why this could be a promising source of advances – even if 90 per cent of its output is essentially useless.

Arctic-dwelling seals don’t just rely on their big blubbery bodies to keep warm, but their noses too. How intricate nose bones – the most intricate ever studied, in fact – help them to retain heat and moisture as they breathe. 

There’s a problem with the universe. At least, with our understanding of it. The way that matter clumps together on very large scales seems to be a little off, and the two main measurement methods just don’t agree with each other. While it's not unusual for there to be discrepancies with the standard model of cosmology, this issue is potentially a biggie, and could reflect significant gaps in how we understand the very stuff our universe is made of. 

Plus: How to stop stress from affecting sleep, what makes a “good” didgeridoo and a mind-reading cap that converts thoughts to text.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests James Dinneen, Matthew Sparkes, Chen Ly and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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The Australian outback is vast and the population is really spread out. This makes getting access to emergency healthcare incredibly challenging, as you may be a thousand kilometres or more from the nearest major hospital. The solution? Australia’s Royal Flying Doctor Service – one of the largest aeromedical organisations in the world, and, at nearly 100 years old, the first of its kind.

In this bonus episode of the podcast, Australia reporter Alice Klein speaks to two RFDS team members about some of their incredible rescue operations, from saving a man who crashed his motorbike into an emu, to rescuing a child with a broken femur. She also hears the gut-wrenching tale of Michelle, who says she owes her life to the RFDS.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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Human beings have cultivated cannabis for thousands of years. We have been using it for its euphoric effects for at least several thousand. And as prohibition in the United States and other nations gives way to legal, recreational use, more people are picking up pot for help with sleep, pain, or simple relaxation.

But as medical and recreational use become more popular and increasingly accessible, what’s actually going on inside your body and brain when you imbibe? Cannabinoids, the chemicals in cannabis, trigger an entire system of receptors in our nervous systems, immune systems and elsewhere in our tissues. And this internal, endocannabinoid system regulates so much of our physiology that it may explain everything from the post-pot munchies…to runner’s high.

In the second of this three-part special series on the science of cannabis, Christie Taylor visits the stoned mind, where memory gets hazy, time passes weirdly and creativity…maybe just feels easier to achieve. And why there’s so much we don’t know yet about how cannabis affects us, both for good and for ill.

Learn more:The team at New Scientist investigates cannabis and the brain, the environmental cost of growing cannabis, and other questions in this special reporting series. Visit newscientist.com/cannabis

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#227

Quantum computing researchers at IBM have stepped up the power of their devices by a huge amount. The company’s new device Condor has more than doubled the number of quantum bits of its previous record-breaking machine, which was released just last year. This massive increase in computational power is just one of the company’s latest achievements. It has also announced Heron, a smaller quantum computer but one that’s less error-prone – and therefore more useful – than any IBM has made.

We’ve seen a lot of big wins at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, but many of them have come with caveats. From exciting commitments on loss and damage negotiations to the 120 countries that have pledged to triple their renewable energy by the end of this decade, the latest agreements bring a lot of promise. But as funding targets fall short, the world’s highest emitters sit out on certain pledges and people with financial stakes in fossil fuels negotiate pledges of their own, the summit’s success remains in flux.

An antibody treatment may protect people from overdosing on the dangerous opioid drug fentanyl, even as the opioid epidemic kills more than 150 people each day in the United States. Although this treatment has not yet been tested in humans, a single infusion protects monkeys from overdose for a month. Why this new approach is so promising and could even treat addiction to the drug.

Honeyguides are a type of bird that guide humans to bees' nests by responding to specific calls made by people hunting honey. It's a remarkable example of partnership between species: this cooperation means the humans get honey and the birds get a tasty snack of wax and bee larvae. Even more amazing is the finding that honeyguides respond to different calls depending on where they are in the world.

Plus: A new species of hedgehog has been discovered, how self-replicating nanorobots could be used to make drugs or chemicals inside our bodies and which brain regions are involved in understanding (and enjoying) jokes.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Jacob Aron, Grace Wade and Sam Wong. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Did your chemistry lessons involve baking chocolate lava cakes? Have you ever wanted to eat your biology homework? While ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ brought a fictional cooking-as-chemistry story to TV viewers this fall, real-life scientist Pia Sörensen’s students are some of the few who can actually answer “yes.”

Sörensen’s directs Harvard University’s Science and Cooking program, which teaches science lessons through the culinary arts. She is the author and editor of several books, including the best-seller “Science and Cooking: Physics meets Food, from Homemade to Haute Cuisine”.

In this episode of CultureLab, Pia explains how understanding chemistry and biology can help us to make the perfect cheese sauce, offers up a masterclass in fermentation and teaches us what insects have to do with why your avocado goes brown – and why acids can stop the process. She also describes how to make Lutfisk, Sweden’s gelatinous answer to ceviche, an admittedly ‘acquired taste’ of a dish.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#226

This year’s COP28 could be the most important climate summit since the Paris Agreement in 2015. After opening in Dubai on Thursday, this will be the first time countries will formally take stock of climate change since agreeing to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. While we can expect world leaders to make some major commitments regarding renewable energy, sceptics are concerned the location of the summit will mean that fossil fuel interests end up disproportionately shaping the meeting.

You may want to thank dirt for the evolution of life on Earth and the incredible biodiversity on the planet. We now know from computer simulations that a spike in nutrient-rich soil led to a boom in marine biodiversity millions of years ago. And thanks to plate tectonics and continental drift, that soil built up on land too and was an essential ingredient to life as we know it.

What would happen to our solar system if the Sun suddenly had some competition…like if a roaming star flew too close? Would it snatch one of our planets, disrupt their orbits or send Mercury hurling towards the Sun? As researchers have found out, these and many other frightening scenarios are all possible - but thankfully not thatlikely. 

Bottlenose dolphins can sense electric fields with tiny pits in their skin and could be using them to hunt or even navigate. This new finding puts them on par with sharks, who also have this superpower. 

Plus: How chinstrap penguins sleep 11 hours a day, but in thousands of 4-second micro-naps. AI predicts there could be more than 2 million different ways to make a crystal. And how to pour a cup of tea as quietly as possible.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests James Dinneen, Jacob Aron, Leah Crane and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Cannabis is having a moment. Half of the US population lives in a state where marijuana is legal, and 9 in 10 people nationwide support legalisation in some form. This is a stark difference from mere decades ago, when prohibition was the norm in the entire US. Meanwhile, if you live in Malta, Uruguay, Canada – and maybe soon, Germany – your entire country is one with legal recreational pot. And access to medical marijuana extends to even more countries, including the UK and Australia.

But as medical and recreational use become more popular and increasingly accessible, how exactly did we get to this moment of change? What has research been able to tell us – so far – about how the plant produces its euphoric effects, what medical purposes it may be able to serve or how it might be harmful? And how could our relationship with this unassuming leaf change in the coming decades?

In the first of this three-part special series on the science of cannabis, Christie Taylor explores our deep history with cannabis,from the first domestication 12,000 years ago in Northwest China, to the current skyrocketing popularity in the United States and around the world.

Learn more:The team at New Scientist investigates cannabis and the brain, the environmental cost of growing cannabis, and other questions in this special reporting series. Visit newscientist.com/cannabis

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#225

Life on Mercury? That would be a shocking discovery. The planet is incredibly inhospitable to life… as we know it. But the discovery of salt glaciers on its surface has opened up the possibility that extremophile bacteria could be buried beneath its surface. Lucky then that the BepiColombo mission is planned to take another look at Mercury soon.

Ever wondered why you can go all night without getting hungry but can’t last a few hours in the day? Well, there may be cells in our brains that tell us when it’s time to eat. A mice study found AgRP brain cells fire faster right around the time the rodents usually chow down. If this is true in humans too, it may clue us into our own hunger cues.

Earth has been hit by a powerful cosmic ray, the second most powerful ever detected. This tiny subatomic particle contains a massive amount of energy and is thought to have come from a place in space called the cosmic void. How it got here is a mystery and has scientists excitedly searching for an answer.

Babies are learning how to speak before they’re even born. While we know babies come to know the sound of their parents’ voices while in the womb, it turns out just hearing people talk enhances their future language skills and ability to recognise specific languages.

Plus: Why one bat in Europe uses its penis as a hand, how a robot is being trained to pick up your dirty washing and why plants in Europe are more productive on the weekend.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Leah Crane, Clare Wilson, Alex Wilkins and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Event:

Separating the science from the hype with the latest research on cannabis.

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Turning the Earth into a cube, the gift that just keeps giving. Last episode we had fish bowl spaceships, this time we have sea monsters!

If you thought cubifying the Earth couldn’t get more wacky, you’re in for a treat. In the Dead Planets Society season finale, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte are once again joined by geophysicist Mika McKinnon. This time she explains what time would be like on a 6-faced planet, how you’d be able to experience all four seasons in a single day on Cube Earth and why this re-formed planet would spur on the evolution of some pretty strange lifeforms, including sea monsters.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth. 

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This is it, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. We’ve killed the sun, smushed the asteroid belt, burrowed into other planets… but now it’s time for the big one… Earth.

In this two-part season finale, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte do irreparable damage to our planet by turning it into a cube. Joining the pair in this mammoth task is geophysicist and disaster consultant Mika McKinnon. In this first episode Mika tackles the many life-changing knock-on effects of cubifying Earth, such as how only portions of the planet would be habitable, why we would need giant fish bowls on wheels to cross from one face to the other and why earthquakes would become the new normal.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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#224

Tree planting has become an incredibly popular way of attempting to store carbon dioxide and slow global warming. But new research estimates we may be able to store huge amounts of carbon dioxide without planting any new trees at all. All we have to do is protect the ones we already have. The world’s existing forests could store up to 228 billion tonnes of carbon, but is protecting them an achievable goal?

Life expectancy for everyone in the US is on the decline, but especially for men, with the “death gap” between men and women increasing dramatically in recent years. Why are men now dying nearly six years before women on average? Covid-19, opioid use, suicide and firearms are all influencing the worrisome trend.

Bonobos are the peacekeepers of the primate world. While their close cousins, chimpanzees, prefer to fight with rival groups to resolve conflict, bonobos prefer to have sex – and they generally get along with members of other groups. Why some bonobos are friendlier than others, and what that might tell us about human aggression and cooperation.

Physicists have created tiny lasers from soap bubbles. This whimsical sounding technological feat is surprisingly simple to recreate. With a few ingredients, you too could create a bubble laser at home. Useful for detecting electric fields and pressure changes, this could become a much more affordable way of producing sensors in the future.

Plus: How 20 per cent of people who take Paxlovid, a covid-19 drug that reduces the risk of severe illness, rebound and get the virus again a few days after they stop taking it; how to seed new life on a planet by “catching” a comet; and how one artificial intelligence model has learned how to beat us at both chess and poker, and what this might say about creating more “generally” intelligent AIs.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests James Dinneen, Corryn Wetzel, Sam Wong and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Need a listening ear?UK Samaritans: 116123;US 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988;hotlines in other countries.

Event: Separating the science from the hype with the latest research on cannabis.

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As astronauts look down on Earth from space, the experience is often life-altering. The “pale blue dot” looks fragile from way up there. And in the novel Orbital, we get to see our planet from the perspective of astronauts aboard the International Space Station, giving us a glimpse into why the distant view shifts their perspectives so dramatically. 

The book follows the team of astronauts as they observe Earth, collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But author Samantha Harvey says she hopes Orbitalis as much a painting as it is a novel, writing in expressive prose to capture the epic vistas witnessed from space each day. From glaciers and deserts, to the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans – and even the destructive force of an intensifying typhoon. 

In this episode, Rowan Hooper asks Harvey about her inspirations and how she was able to so vividly capture this sense of Earth from afar. Plus a meditation on what it means, emotionally, to look at our planet from space and reckon with how we are changing it. 

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#223

Spinal cord stimulation has, for the first time, been used to improve the mobility of someone with Parkinson’s Disease. Marc, who has battled the condition for 30 years, once fell five to six times daily, but now is able to walk kilometres per day thanks to an array of electrodes that stimulate the movement-related neurons in his spine.  Though it was successful for Marc, the treatment is also highly customised and more research is needed before it might benefit people more broadly. 

In the world of synthetic biology, an international team has crafted a yeast cell with half its DNA manufactured in a lab, marking a significant step in our ability to rewrite and alter complex genomes. While yeast is already used to create useful substances such as beer and insulin, synthetic yeasts could be engineered to create an even wider variety of molecules more easily. Why yeast might be just the beginning for synthetic organisms.

Can the secret to affordable, clean energy have been in the ocean all this time? Engineers are bringing a 140-year-old idea back to life, with the aim of harnessing the massive temperature difference between warm surface water and cold, deep sea water. A process known as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) was originally proposed in the 19th century and is now being tested in some island nations. How this sustainable method works and the obstacles to its widespread adoption.

New evolutionary research shows that crabs evolved to leave the ocean up to 17 different times in the 230 million years since they arose. What these crustaceans’ remarkable evolutionary flexibility might reveal about adaptability across the animal kingdom.

Plus: Using tiny microphones to record happy rat squeaks, a breakthrough in underwater radio communication and a smashing fact about left-handed badminton players. 

Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss all of this with guests Michael Le Page, James Dinneen and Alexandra Thompson. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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Asteroids are cool, but they’re all spread out across the solar system. Wouldn’t it be neater if we could smush them all together to make one MEGA asteroid? Maybe even an asteroid… planet.

From an asteroid sausage machine to a Jell-O infused asteroid donut, Leah and Chelsea discover just how difficult and disastrous it would be to merge the asteroid belt – with one surprising silver lining. Joining them in their quest are planetary scientists Andy Rivkin of John Hopkins University, and Kathryn Volk of the University of Arizona.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#222

At this point, most people have heard the accepted wisdom that you need 8 hours sleep every night, especially for a healthy brain. But what if we’ve got it all wrong? If you lie awake at night worrying about getting enough sleep, you may be in luck. A reminder that correlation is not causation, and some surprising new research into how our brains respond to lower amounts of sleep.

In space news, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has just completed a fly-by of a ‘nearby’ asteroid, in preparation for a much bigger excursion out into the solar system. Lucy’s next mission takes it to Jupiter, where it’ll be exploring the asteroids that follow in the gas giant’s orbit, and which may be fragments from early planetary formation. Also, unusual dense spots buried deep within Earth’s mantle may actually be remains of an ancient planet that collided with ours. What buried bits of ‘Theia’ might tell us about Earth’s cosmological history and the creation of our moon.

The UK’s first summit to discuss the safety and security of AI and its role in society has now drawn to a close. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak brought together more than 100 delegates from 28 countries, including tech CEOs such as Elon Musk. Amid frustrations over transparency, and a lacklustre policy result, what did the summit actually achieve?

Can you find the head on a starfish? Researchers investigating the animal’s genes are finding that starfish are actually just heads, and perhaps nothing else, crawling around on their lips. What this finding tells us about the way ecology and natural selection shape animal evolution.

Plus: Why some flatworms are great at sex, while others can regrow their heads – and why they can’t do both at the same time. How a desert plant is adapting to low moisture environments with salty sweat.And why chimps seek out high ground to spy on their rivals.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Clare Wilson, Leah Crane, Matt Sparkes and Claire Ainsworth. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

newscientist.com/tours

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Did you know we have King Louis XIV to thank for fistula surgeries? After surgeons worked hard to find a cure for his rear-end ailment, the operation became the height of fashion, with people queuing up to go under the knife so they could be just like their king.  

That’s just one of the incredible stories from Suzie Edge’s new book Vital Organs: A History of the World’s Most Famous Body Parts. Suzie Edge is a medical historian and frequently takes to TikTok to surprise (and sometimes shock) her followers with the true health stories of famous people from the past.

In this episode, Suzie explores some of the most fascinating tales from her book, including the tale of Alexis St. Martin, who became a medical curiosity after an accident left his stomach partially open to the world. She explains why she loves talking about the bodies of famous people from the past – how it makes them feel less like myths or legends, and more like real people. And she touches on our obsession with stigmatising people based on their physical appearance – how movie villains often have facial disfigurements, or how historians often blamed Kaiser Wilhelm’s warlike ways on his disabled left arm.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#221

Independent researchers have found new ways that OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool can assist bad actors, from providing the code needed to hack computer databases to teaching people how to make homemade explosives. While the company continually updates security safeguards, it turns out some languages can be used to bypass these guardrails. 

It has long been thought that only humans and some toothed whales go through the menopause. But are there other mammals out there who experience it too? And if so, is it a rarity, or much more common than we realised? The answer may depend on how you define “menopause.”

A US start-up has broken a record in quantum computing, fitting the largest ever number of qubits – or quantum bits – into its new machine, finally exceeding the 1000-qubit milestone and more than doubling the previous record. Qubits are what allow quantum computers to do their calculations, and are essential in increasing reliability and stability. Still, more qubits aren’t the only step in the quest for more practical quantum computers.

Measuring self-awareness in animals usually involves a well-known mirror test, where an animal is given a mark before being placed in front of a mirror. If they touch the mark after seeing it on their reflection, they pass the test.  But few animals have passed, and it isn’t without controversy. Now, researchers using a new kind of mirror test to investigate self-awareness in chickens – who fail the classic mirror test – think they have found new evidence that the birds recognise their reflections as “self.” This might reveal self-awareness in a greater variety of animals. 

Plus: Perfecting vegan cheeses with the help of fermentation, smart glasses that could mimic echolocation for people who are blind and measuring the weight of the human immune system.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Jeremy Hsu, Michael Le Page, Chelsea Whyte and Alex Wilkins. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

www.newscientist.com/halloween

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Whether it’s searing heat, sapphire winds striking the sky like rain, or an atmosphere that makes your eyes pop out of your head, some planets are just horrible for life. But even though some pretty horrific planets already exist, the team is not satisfied – they want to bring all of these calamitous qualities together to design the worst of all worlds.

In a special bonus edition of Dead Planets Society, recorded on stage in front of an audience at New Scientist Live, Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane rope two guests in on their mission of destruction. 

Joining our hosts in their quest to make the most inhospitable planet are astrobiologist and author Lewis Dartnell at the University of Westminster and Vincent Van Eylen, professor and exoplanet researcher at University College London.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt. The hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like us to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. Or if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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#220

When you’re asleep, you’re completely dead to the world, right? Well, it turns out we can actually communicate with people while they’re sleeping and even get them to smile or frown on command – at least some of the time., Why this window into the sleeping brain could have important implications for treating people with certain sleep-related health conditions, or even better insights into why and how we dream.

In space, scientists have discovered the source of the largest ever recorded marsquake, which rattled the red planet last year. Unlike other quakes on Mars, which does not have plate tectonics to explain seismic events, this one was not the result of an asteroid impact. And the oldest fast radio burst ever detected shocks researchers – a blast with power enough to microwave a bowl of popcorn twice the size of our Sun. What both these events can tell us about unearthly environments.

As a record bird flu outbreak continues to devastate bird populations across the globe, we’ve got a surprising finding about its origins. Unlike previous outbreaks, the virus currently circulating originated in Europe and Africa, not Asia. Why this geographical shift? And how can knowing its origins help prevent future outbreaks?

The world’s best known particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, is the largest machine on the planet. But it turns out particle accelerators don’t need to be so big. Scientists have made a truly miniature accelerator, so small it could fit into a pen tip, which could have hugely practical benefits for medical care. 

Plus: How to reduce the energy footprint of massive data centres, why hitting ‘snooze’ on your alarm clock may not actually be a bad thing and how dung beetles can help us keep track of highly endangered lemurs.

And if you want one final chance to win a free copy of Rob Eastaway’s Headscratchers, email your guess for this week’s puzzle to podcasts@newscientist.com, or send a voice message to hear yourself on the show.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Clare Wilson, Alex Wilkins, Grace Wade and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

newscientist.com/20497

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Would you feel uneasy or relieved to know that free will doesn’t exist? For those who have been fortunate in life, it may feel an attack to suggest they are not captains of their own ships - that their success was down to biological and environmental chance. But for others it may feel a lot more liberating.

Robert Sapolsky is an author, eminent neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University, known by many for his work studying baboons and human biology. But his latest book is much more associated with the field of philosophy.Determined: Life Without Free Will explores the notions of choice, responsibility and morality, arguing that free will does not exist and why acknowledging this should cause us to rethink the fundamentals of human society.

In this episode of CultureLab, Timothy Revell asks Sapolsky why humans are so-hardwired to believe that free will does exist, how our understanding of free will has shifted over the years and whether we could avoid societal collapse if everyone began believing their actions are not their own.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#219

The most detailed map yet of the human brain has been unveiled. The human brain atlas visualises the brain more precisely than we’ve ever been able to before. Cell by cell the map can illuminate how the brain is as specialised and organised as it is and how it develops throughout our lifetimes. How has this been achieved and what can we do with this new level of detail?

Two distant icy planets have smashed into each other, turning them into a doughnut of vaporised rock orbiting their nearest star. It’s the first time we’ve been able to pinpoint an event like this, and it may reshape our understanding of how star systems evolve.

A prominent cryptography expert is warning that one of the United States’ top intelligence agencies may be trying to weaken the next generation of encryption. When quantum computers become widespread, modern encryption will be all but useless. But as scientists work to come up with new mathematical techniques to safeguard our online data, one mathematician has claimed the National Security Agency is intentionally watering down proposed new standards for cryptographic algorithms – with potential consequences for everyone’s security.

Despite being made of solid metal, Earth’s inner core is unusually soft and squishy – more like clay or rubber than cast iron. A game of high-pressure musical chairs involving iron atoms may explain it all. 

Plus: How Neanderthals hunted cave lions, how to make solid roads on our moon and celebrating the winner (and all the runners-up) of Fat Bear Week.

And if you want the chance to win a free copy of Rob Eastaway’s Headscratchers, email your guess for this week’s puzzle to podcasts@newscientist.com, or send a voice message to hear yourself on the show.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Clare Wilson, Jacob Aron, Rob Eastaway, Matthew Sparkes and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

newscientist.com/20497

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Leah finally takes on her arch-nemesis; the two-faced, arrogant, cold-hearted… moon. And despite her lunar love, Chelsea gets roped into the destruction. Together, they plot to crack it like an egg, vaporise it into nothingness and drill into it with a giant jackhammer… all while dodging the space police.

Our space marauders recruit the assistance of astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Haym Benaroya at Rutgers University.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt. The hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. Or if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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#218

The 2023 Nobel Prize winners have been announced. Winners of the science prizes include two scientists who helped develop mRNA vaccines, physicists who’ve managed to generate ultra-short pulses of light to study electrons and chemists who’ve made unimaginably tiny crystals, called quantum dots. Why all these discoveries have touched our lives – and how one almost didn’t happen.

We’ve got some science-based puzzles that’ll have you scratching your head… Rob Eastaway, the man behind New Scientist’s Headscratcher puzzle column, has helped author a new book of brain teasers, aptly named ‘Headscratchers’. To celebrate its launch, Rob shares a tricky clock-based puzzle to try your hand at – plus a chance to win a free copy of the book.

From SpaceX to Amazon to OneWeb, the race is on to launch thousands of satellites into space, capable of providing internet access to almost anywhere in the world. But at what cost to the environment? The first study comparing the carbon footprint of these satellites is out now.

Plus: How electrons from Earth may be influencing the creation of water on the moon, why chicken hatcheries in Europe are starting to sex-test unhatched chicks and why hippopotamuses are so bad at chewing their food.

And a plug for our favourite feast of the year: Fat Bear Week. 

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Clare Wilson, Alex Wilkins, Rob Eastaway, Jeremy Hsu and Corryn Wetzel. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

The Royal Institution’s exciting autumn season of public science talks is on. To book, visit www.rigb.org/ 

Vote for your favourite bear for Fat Bear Week, and learn how brown bears know it’s time to bulk up.

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Our planet has gone through a lot. If we peer into the deep history of Earth’s climate, we see ice ages, rapid warming events and mass extinctions. All of which led to the advent of humankind. But as today’s climate warms at a pace we’ve never seen before, can these past climate events tell us anything about our future?

University of Pennsylvania climate scientist and activist Michael Mann explores this in his new book Our Fragile Moment, which looks at how climate change has shaped our planet and human societies for better and for worse. The big take home message is that it’s not too late to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

In this episode of CultureLab, environment reporter James Dinneen speaks to Mann about the climate extremes we’ve seen this year, what we can learn from ancient rapid warming events like the P.E.T.M (Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum) and why climate doom is now a bigger threat than denial to taking action.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#217

Antimatter is the counterpart to regular matter, but with an opposite electric charge, as well as other differences. So if it’s the opposite of normal matter, does it fall upinstead of down? Studying antimatter is notoriously difficult, but scientists at CERN have scraped together just enough to take a closer look at its behaviour under gravity – their results are consistent with Albert Einstein’s predictions. 

With remote school and work during the covid-19 pandemic, it’s no wonder telehealth startups popped up all over the US. With telemedicine, you don’t even need to leave your house to get a prescription – medicine can be delivered straight to your door, a boon for people who live in remote areas or have other difficulties in accessing a doctor’s office. But does this convenience come at a price?

An “apocalypse” of declining insect populations was first reported in 2017 . But what is to blame? New research finds a culprit that’s neither habitat loss nor pesticides, but something potentially more fickle.

Move over cows, there’s a new ‘moo’ in town. It turns out crocodiles can moo too – African dwarf crocodiles to be exact. In an effort to monitor their populations remotely, scientists have been recording the surprising noises they make.

Plus: The best crater to set up a base on the Moon, why classroom therapy dogs are so helpful and how carrots became orange.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss all of this with guests Alex Wilkins, Grace Wade, James Dinneen and Sofia Quaglia. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

The Royal Institution’s exciting autumn season of public science talks is on. To book, visit www.rigb.org/

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Are the stresses of life getting too much? Fancy a relaxing getaway to a planet with stifling sulfuric acid clouds, choking quantities of CO2 and punishing amounts of atmospheric pressure? Yeah, neither do Chelsea and Leah. 

That’s why, with the help of planetary scientist Paul Byrne at Washington University in St. Louis, they’re reinventing Venus, our uninhabitable neighbour. Together, they attempt to clear the air, smash it senseless with asteroids and move it farther from the sun… all for a few quintillion dollars.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like us to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, find @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth on Twitter/X.

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#216

For the first time ever, a team has extracted RNA from an extinct animal. Thylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, are carnivorous marsupials that went extinct in the early 20th century. While we’ve been extracting DNA from extinct animals for years, getting their RNA has been much more difficult. What can this breakthrough tell us about the lives they led?

What is consciousness and how does it work? There’s a reason this is known as “the hard problem” of neuroscience. Everyone wants an answer but only a handful of convincing theories exist. And now, one of the more compelling theories - integrated information theory, or IIT - has come under fire. Are critics right to label it ‘pseudoscience’?

Eris and Makemake are two dwarf planets that orbit in the Kuiper belt in the outer reaches of our solar system. They’re small, icy objects that receive little sunlight, so we might expect them to be pretty boring – but it seems we were wrong. Why a closer look from the James Webb Space Telescope is painting an intriguing new picture, one that may include liquid water.

Despite not having brains, Caribbean box jellyfish still have the capacity to learn. How are they processing the information without a centralised brain? One team thinks it could have something to do with their 24 eye-like structures. Find out how they tested this theory.

Plus: A new kind of ‘reverse vaccine’ that could help people with autoimmune diseases, the earliest evidence of human ancestors building wooden structures, and counting the number of cells in a human body. 

Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss all of this with guests Clare Wilson, Leah Crane and Corryn Wetzel. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

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You’re in the volcano lair of an evil supervillain, hellbent on taking over the world. In anger, he hurls one of his minions into the molten lava bubbling beneath them, as the unfortunate lacky swiftly sinks into the river of molten rock. If you’ve ever watched a James Bond-esque film, you’ll be able to picture the scene. The problem is - the science doesn’t stack up.

John Scalzi is an American science fiction author, and in his new book ‘Starter Villain’ he injects a dose of realism into many classic tropes about villains, humorously poking holes in some of the flaws of logic we see on TV - including their penchant for volcano lairs. They’re still useful, just maybe not in the way you’d think. The novel follows the journey of Charlie, who is unwittingly thrust into the dangerous world of supervillains, forced to take up his late uncle’s mantle.

In this episode of CultureLab, Christie Taylor asks Scalzi what an evil mastermind would actually look like in the real world, why the genetically engineered dolphins in his book are such jerks and how he gets away with leaving some of the science unexplained.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#215

A smart toilet with a camera inside that analyses your poop, plus a study of people who are fluent in speaking backwards – these are just two recipients of this year’s Ig Nobel prize. As the satirical sister to the Nobel prize, the Ig Nobels honour scientific achievements that make people laugh…then think. Prize founder Marc Abrahams on this year’s hilarious winners - and why even robots made from reanimating dead spiders can have a more serious side.

As the winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, updated versions of the covid-19 vaccine are being rolled out in many countries. Should you be lining up for your next booster? And a sneak peak at a new, more effective twist on Moderna’s mRNA vaccines.

Meanwhile, in the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted ancient supermassive black holes that are much larger, relative to their galaxies, than we see in younger galaxies. A tantalising finding for astronomers who believe these anomalies could be evidence of a new kind of black hole. 

And did you know that palm cockatoos are totally rock ’n’ roll? Not only do they drum, but they even craft their own drumsticks. Find out about their unique musical abilities, and what this says about their intelligence.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Marc Abrahams, Michael Le Page, Alex Wilkins and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

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Join Leah and Chelsea as they belatedly mourn the loss of Pluto as a planet. Back in 2006, Pluto was demoted to “dwarf planet”, sparking widespread outrage… a decision the team is still determined to reverse.

Special guests are Kathryn Volk of the University of Arizona and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology, who discuss several approaches to boosting Pluto’s status, from helping it pack on the pounds, to dragging it into the inner solar system, to sabotaging one of its neighbours…

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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#214

A multi-talented brain cell has been discovered – and it’s a hybrid of the two we already know about, neurons and glia. These glutamatergic astrocytes could provide insights into our brain health and function, and even enable treatments for conditions like Parkinsons.

Building a bridge over a moving glacier is no mean feat. But rising global temperatures have thawed the permafrost in Denali National Park in Alaska, causing its only access road to sink. A bridge may be the only way to continue access to the park’s beautiful wilderness. 

Rather than waiting around for hours for your electric car to charge, imagine doing it near instantaneously. That’s the promise of quantum batteries. Although we’re not quite at that stage yet, researchers may have found a way to make quantum batteries that charge wirelessly and last forever.

Could the armies of ancient China owe their success to their… shoes? Researchers have been studying the feet of The Terracotta Army, a massive collection of statues that depict the armies of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. 

Humans and other great apes have incredibly flexible shoulder and elbow joints. Unusually, this is not a trait shared by our monkey cousins. Why the difference? And what are the pros and cons of this extra mobility?

Plus: How to grow human kidneys in pigs without making pig-human hybrids and the mystery of a super-bright space explosion.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Alec Luhn, Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Chen Ly and Sam Wong. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

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Whether it’s the hidden colours of ultraviolet that bees can see, the complex rhythms and tones of birdsong that we’re unable to hear, or the way a dog can smell the past in incredible detail, the way humans experience the world is not the only way.

Every animal has its own ‘umwelt’ – a unique sensory experience that allows it to perceive the world differently. As humans we can barely begin to understand what the world looks like to many of the other creatures that inhabit the Earth. But author Ed Yong is helping to paint a picture…

In this episode of CultureLab, Christie Taylor speaks to Ed about the paperback release of his book An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, which looks at more than 100 different species and explores the amazing ways their sensory worlds are shaped by light, sound, vibrations, heat and even electrical charge.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#213

Our ancestors may have very nearly gone extinct. Around a million years ago, there were just 1300 humans left and it stayed that way for over a hundred thousand years. This is the dramatic claim of research into the genetic diversity of our early ancestors – though some scientists disagree with the conclusions.

Despite being completely paralysed and unable to speak, Rodney Gorham can still communicate… by typing messages with his mind. Rodney is one of the first people in the world to use a new type of brain computer interface. The company behind it, Synchron, is focusing on medical uses like this for brain implants, rather than more outlandish superhuman technology.

Ever wondered what a 3000-year-old mummified noblewoman would’ve smelled like? Wonder no more! Scientists have recreated the exact scent of an ancient Egyptian woman’s perfume – giving them a fascinating insight into millenia-old burial traditions and early trading.

Beer goggles; when you’ve drunk just enough alcohol that everyone starts to look more attractive. It’s a well-known phenomenon, but is it actually real? A study that got its participants a little tipsy has some answers.

Plus: How tall people have more diverse gut microbiomes, why a meteor that crashed on Earth in 2014 may – or may not –  be an interstellar visitor from outside our solar system and how pirate spiders catch their prey.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Michael Le Page, Jeremy Hsu, Sofia Quaglia and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, you can subscribe to New Scientist at newscientist.com.

Events and Links:

Dead Planets Society Episode 4

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In an unexpected twist of empathy, Leah and Chelsea are putting their heads together to save the Earth… yes, you read that right!

Asteroid researcher and planetary astronomer Andy Rivkin of John Hopkins University joins them to discuss the myriad ways in which we could deflect, destroy or intercept asteroids headed towards Earth. Among the team’s suggestions: a humongous net (a world-wide-web?), a gigantic gong… and Bruce Willis.

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

Check out Leah’s asteroid Armageddon story here.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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#212

India is celebrating after successfully - and gently - landing on the Moon. A huge win for the country, which is now only the fourth nation to do so. A look at the country’s next ambitions after a historic touchdown. Plus why Russia’s rival mission ended in disaster, and the future of lunar exploration worldwide. 

Cells found in placentas may be able to treat heart attacks. Researchers were first clued into this amazing healing capability after two pregnant women spontaneously recovered from heart failure. What clinical research in mice can tell us so far. 

Use of psychedelics and other mind-altering drugs is booming in US adults under 55, with marijuana use breaking records. But why is substance use on the rise, and does this mean people are turning away from alcohol?

Artificial intelligence could help us detect tsunamis earlier, and perhaps help save lives in the process. How ocean disturbances can travel as far as the Earth’s ionosphere, where GPS satellites can detect them.   

Plus: How turtle shells can store the historical record of nuclear activity, how dog poo is making the Norwegian tundra greener and how coffee grounds can make concrete almost 30% stronger.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss all of this with guests Leah Crane, Alice Klein, Grace Wade and Jeremy Hsu. To read more about these stories, you can subscribe to New Scientist at newscientist.com.

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Struggling to choose what to watch? Whether it’s sci-fi, medical dramas or documentaries about the natural world, we’ve got you covered. Our TV columnist Bethan Ackerley shares a rundown of her top TV choices from 2023 so far, as well as what to look out for the rest of the year. 

Reviews of some of the shows featured in this episode:  

Foundation (Apple TV)

The Last Of Us (HBO Max and Sky Atlantic)

Best Interests (Sky Go, Amazon, Apple TV)

Wild Isles (BBC iPlayer, Amazon)

Dead Ringers (Amazon)

Silo (Apple TV)

To read all of Bethan’s TV columns visit newscientist.com/author/bethan-ackerley

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#211

The hottest July on record, a global surge in wildfires, bleached corals and collapsed cactuses - the story of climate change feels dire right now. But before you bury your head in the sand or succumb to doom and gloom - a dose of reality and hope. In this climate special, a look at how our record-setting year fits the predictions, the incredible good news about the global energy transition and an appeal to the power of our decisions to make a difference in the future.  

There’s a new covid-19 variant in town - EG.5 or “Eris”. What you need to know as cases rise around the world.

Why haven’t we heard from intelligent alien life yet? It might not be down to their lack of intelligence, but rather their lack of the key ingredient for technology as we know it – oxygen. 

Plus: He might be 5300 years old, but we’re still learning new things about Ötzi, Europe’s oldest known naturally preserved (and tattooed) mummy; how AI has recreated a classic rock song by reading people’s minds; and a lampshade that removes air pollution from your home. 

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests James Dinneen, Michael Le Page, Alexandra Thompson and Alex Wilkins. To read about these subjects and to check out the magazine’s version of the climate special, you can subscribe to New Scientist at newscientist.com.

Grab the UK release ofTimothy’s new book, The Secret Lives of Numbers, here. (Out in the US in January).

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As if burrowing through a planet and blowing up the sun weren’t enough… This time, Chelsea and Leah hope to harness the power of gravitational waves to destroy everything we know and love. 

Christopher Berry at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)  explains how they could create their own gravitational waves using a bespoke black hole machine, and helps them understand how to control such a device for their nefarious purposes…

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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#210

Ultra-processed foods are bad for us and we should avoid them at all costs – right? Well, it’s actually not as clear cut as that.The foods may actually form a much more important part of healthy diets than we release.  

Nuclear fusion, which could some day offer a low-waste source of clean power, is one step closer to becoming viable. Last year scientists managed to get more power out of a fusion reactor than they put in – a huge breakthrough for the technology. And this year they’ve done one better, squeezing even more power out of it.

There’s a lot that’s “unknome” about the human genome. More than 20 years since we discovered humans have just 20,000 different genes, we still don’t have a clue what thousands of them even do. A project is now finally looking at the proteins that science forgot.

We’re getting 70s space race vibes. Russia has launched its first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years – just behind India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which entered lunar orbit earlier this week. With both heading to the moon’s south pole, who’s going to get there first?

Plus: a potential vaccine for the virus that causes mononucleosis – often called “the kissing disease” – and is linked to multiple sclerosis; whether robots are better than humans at the very CAPTCHA tests designed to block robots; and the slightly gross treasure hiding in 200-million-year-old fossilised poop.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Chelsea Whyte discuss all of this with guests Grace Wade, Matt Sparkes, Michael Le Page and Leah Crane. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist at newscientist.com.

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Scientist and broadcaster Alice Roberts has written her first children’s book. The fictional tale follows prehistoric girl Tuuli, and captures the story of her encounter with a strange boy who leads her on a great adventure.

Inspired by her own experiences trekking through the arctic, the book imagines what life would’ve been like for humans of the time, how they might’ve interacted with neanderthals and grapples with questions like: how were the first wolves domesticated?

In this episode of CultureLab, New Scientist’s comment and culture editor Alison Flood, and her 10-year-old daughter Jenny, ask Alice about the inspiration for the book and the science behind it.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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#209

The saga of the room-temperature superconductor continues. The creators of a new material called LK-99 maintain that it perfectly conducts electricity at room temperature and pressure and so other scientists are racing to try to test it for themselves. If the findings are true it would be transformative to science and technology. It’s not just researchers, however, who are testing the material, citizen scientists are also trying to create it at home. Early results are now in.

There’s a plan to pump millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the seafloor off Canada’s west coast, but some worry that this could trigger earthquakes. A new study works out just how likely that would be.

Earth to Voyager, this is NASA – do you copy? NASA has lost contact with the Voyager 2 space probe but all is not lost. The team discusses the future of the mission, as well as that the Euclid space telescope has just come online and started sending back its first images.

A blood test for Alzheimer’s has gone on sale that may indicate your risk of developing the disease before symptoms show. But how accurate is the test? And if you find out you’re at risk, is there anything you can do about it? 

Plus: How the foundations of your house could store energy, how the Maillard reaction – responsible for the deliciousness of toast – can happen on the ocean floor, and the discovery of the world’s oldest jellyfish fossil.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Clare Wilson, Leah Crane and James Dinneen. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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In this episode of Dead Planets Society, Leah and Chelsea embark on a boring journey… no, as in they literally try to borethrough a planet! With the help of planetary scientists,  Baptiste Journaux of the University of Washington and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology, our hosts drill down into the science of achieving this momentous task, discussing which planets are perfect for perforation, how to deal with melting drill bits, and catapulting a whale to outer space…

Tune in to find out if they get to the core of the issue… or if the pressure will be too much. 

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… And if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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New Scientist Weekly #208

Better and cheaper treatments for everything from sickle cell disease to ageing should come as a result of a new technique for delivering mRNA to blood stem cells. The technique has been adapted from the technology in mRNA covid-19 vaccines and could even be used for doping in sport.

Controversial claims of a superconductor that works at room temperature and pressure have ignited heated discussion this week. Such a finding would be revolutionary, with implications for transport, medical science and even nuclear fusion. But is it too early to celebrate this new discovery?

Scientists are scrambling to save coral in the Florida Keys, where record sea temperatures are threatening the entire ecosystem. The coral and their symbiotic algae are being moved using a “coral bus” to off-shore nurseries in the hope of reestablishing them after the heat wanes. Genetic research could be instrumental in saving the reefs.

Ever wondered what a star’s twinkle sounds like? Astronomer Evan Anders has developed a new way of modelling the movement of gases inside stars, giving us a glimpse (with our ears) at how they are built on the inside, how they spend their lives and evolve…

Most of us are heavy-handed when it comes to estimating the weight of our… hands, something researchers have struggled to put their finger on. The strange phenomenon, where we misjudge the weight of our own body parts, could have an evolutionary explanation.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Sam Wong discuss all of this with guests Michael Le Page, Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Sofia Quaglia and Jason Murugesu. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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First J. Robert Oppenheimer created the weapon, then he fought for years to warn of its dangers. During the second world war, the so-called “father of the atomic bomb”, led a team of scientists in the US in a race against Nazi Germany to create the first nuclear weapon. Then it was used to kill thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s new 3-hour blockbuster, the film focuses on the years that followed and how the physicist’s campaigning ultimately led to his downfall.

In this episode of CultureLab, Christie Taylor speaks to Kai Bird, a journalist and historian who co-authored the book that was the main source material for Nolan’s film – American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

To read about subjects like this and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

Links and info:

Check out our review of Oppenheimer, by Simon Ings.

Kai Bird on exonerating Oppenheimer.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists commemorating Oppenheimer’s death (1967)

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New Scientist Weekly #206

A major theory of consciousness is being put to the test with brain scans. Integrated information theory proposes a value called "phi" to represent consciousness and in a new experiment, it seems to work. Does the discovery bring us any closer to solving the elusive “hard problem” of neuroscience? 

Graphene has been hailed as a super material since its synthesis in 2004. But, unbeknownst to us, nature has long-been producing graphene, right under our noses. Understanding natural graphene production could revolutionise the way we create this remarkable material.

A roarsome discovery of two previously unknown sabre-toothed cat species in South Africa provides insights into their cheetah-like and leopard-like lifestyles. The finding challenges our long-held beliefs about these ancient felines. 

Could chargrilled mushrooms be the key to fireproofing our homes? A team in Melbourne, Australia, unveiled a fire-resistant material created from the mycelium of edible mushrooms this week. With remarkable flame resistance and environmentally-friendly properties, the approach looks promising. 

Finally, some intriguing space discoveries, including the Janus star, with its unique hydrogen-helium split surface, a giant exoplanet called PDS 70b, which reveals a potential sibling forming in its orbit, marking the first time two planets have been found to share an orbit, and the LEGO robot creating DNA machines.

Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss all of this with guests Clare Wilkins, Corryn Wetzel and Alex Wilkins. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine atnewscientist.com. 

Events and links: 

To listen to the first episode of our new podcast, The Dead Planets Society, click the link here.

To find out more about our 2024 Polar Tours, visit https://www.newscientist.com/tours/ 

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The sun is the centre of our solar system, the parent body to all the planets, unquestionably the most important cosmic object for life on Earth. But what if we were to destroy it?

It turns out that is easier said than done. In the premier episode of the Dead Planets Society podcast, our hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte resort to extreme methods in their quest to put out the sun. They learn that adding a giant ball of water to the equation will only provide more fuel for the fire, stretching the sun into long noodle-like ribbons is only a temporary solution, and that there are no earthly weapons with enough power to take it out or force it to go supernova. 

They speak with planetary scientist Paul Byrne about the absurd methods we might use to quench our star and how these would play out if they were possible in real life. They are shooting for the stars, quite literally, and the consequences for Earth and the entire solar system are dire. 

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

To listen, subscribe to New Scientist Weekly or visit our podcast page here. 

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New Scientist Weekly #205

Following a year of incredible, awe-inspiring images from deep space, the team is celebrating the 1st birthday of the James Webb Space Telescope. They reflect on the amazing discoveries so far, and look at how JWST will alter our understanding of the universe.

From this summer, the International Seabed Authority will be considering licences for deep sea mining, despite the fact that no set of rules has been agreed upon to govern it. At this critical time, the team explores new research that’s showing just how damaging it could be to mine the seabed. Are the precious minerals worth the risk?

One million dollars is being thrown at a decades old mathematical problem which has proved surprisingly controversial over the years. The team explains how the ABC conjecture has split the mathematical community, and how substantial cash prizes could end the debate once and for all.

Sloths once came in a giantvariety, and were as big as grizzly bears. These giant sloths died out 10,000 years ago but new archaeological evidence suggests humans were making jewellery out of their bones – giving us a new understanding of when humans first arrived in the Americas.

CRISPR to the rescue! Making paper isn’t the most environmentally friendly process, but CRISPR gene editing (the hero promised to solve many issues) can apparently help here too. The team explains how it involves modifying trees to make them easier to process.

On the pod are Timothy Revell, Christie Taylor, Leah Crane, Chen Ly and Corryn Wetzel. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine atnewscientist.com. 

Events and links: 

AI Unleashed 

10 for 10

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Our world has led a long, sometimes tumultuous, and always complicated life. Over the last four billion years, Earth’s geology has changed radically and dramatically.

Earth, a new five-part BBC documentary narrated by naturalist Chris Packham, tells the story of this change by looking at significant moments in the planet’s history - from the dramatic moment when nearly all life on Earth was wiped out, to the end of the dinosaurs and the rise of humanity.

In this episode, Chris explains why he was drawn to working on the series, explores issues of human-driven climate change and biodiversity loss, and explains the perhaps counterintuitive role that romance plays in science.

To read about subjects like this and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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New Scientist Weekly #203

July has become a record-busting month. In fact, this month has seen the hottest global average temperatures ever recorded on Earth. With heat waves hitting the US and the UK coast, the team finds out what’s driving temperatures to such extremes.

Driverless cars could someday go quantum. LiDAR, a light-detection device used in driverless cars to help them navigate, could be replaced by quantum light, or photons. The team explains how this would make driverless cars better at navigating the streets and more resilient against ‘attacks.’

Encrypted runic writing from the 7th Century has been discovered in Norway, becoming the oldest evidence of cryptography in an ancient civilization. But can the team crack the code?

What is a healthyweight? Most people look to their BMI (Body Mass Index) for answers - but can we trust it? The team explains why our definition of overweight may be wrong - and how this isn’t the first time BMI has been challenged.

Ready for your mind to be melted? It turns out time ran 5 times slower in the early universe than it does today. Time dilation was predicted by Einstein, and as the team explains, we’ve now finally been able to prove it. 

On the pod are Timothy Revell, Christie Taylor, Clare Wilson, Madeleine Cuff and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine atnewscientist.com. 

Events and links: 

Yili: www.newscientist.com/yili

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New Scientist Weekly #202

In a potentially era-defining scientific breakthrough, we are now able to detect some of the biggest objects in the cosmos. Researchers have figured out how to use gravitational waves and dead stars to locate supermassive black holes. The team says this discovery could revolutionise our understanding of the origins of the universe.

It’s often assumed that men in hunter-gatherer societies did the hunting, and women did the gathering. But that’s just plain wrong. Archaeological finds and evidence from present day hunter-gatherer societies paint a completely different picture. As the team explains, not only did women hunt, but it’s likely they did it carrying children on their backs!

Can orangutans beatbox? Not quite - but they’re not far off! The team shares the sounds of a “kiss-squeak”, a noise as complex as beatboxing, which orangutans can do effortlessly. Adriano Lameira from the University of Warwick explains what this tells us about our primate cousins and the origins of human speech.

Magic mushrooms have brought religious leaders closer to the divine, in a new experiment looking at the effects of psychedelics. This is one of the projects highlighted at the world’s biggest conference on the science of psychedelics in Denver, Colorado. Grace Wade shares the latest from the conference.

Did you know some companies use artificial intelligence to sort through job applicants? While this can help streamline the hiring process, AI algorithms are notoriously biased, and could be making sexist or racist decisions. The team discusses a new law in New York City which aims to tackle the issue.

On the pod are Timothy Revell, Christie Taylor, Grace Wade, Alex Wilkins and Michael Le Page. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine atnewscientist.com. 

Events and links: 

New Scientist Live: https://live.newscientist.com/

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New Scientist Weekly #201

A new therapy is being used to treat a rare genetic disorder in babies, before they’ve even been born. The condition, called X-linked ectodermal dysplasia, which only affects boys, leaves them with few teeth, sparse hair and no sweat glands. The team learns about a groundbreaking technique which delivers a key protein to the fetus through the amniotic fluid.

With extreme marine heatwaves currently hitting the UK and Ireland - and as temperatures climb with the arrival of El Niño - 2023 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record. The team discuss the contribution of climate change to the heat, but end on a glimmer of good news. 

The orcas are revolting! Or are they really… You may have seen reports of the ‘orca uprising’ on social media, as killer whales have been filmed ‘attacking’ sailboats off the coast of Portugal and Spain. But are these really orchestrated acts of revenge, as some theories suggest?

Rogue stars that escaped from the Andromeda galaxy could now be whizzing through our own galaxy - the Milky Way. But how did they get here? The team hears how thesesuper-fast stars may have been slingshotted across the universe. The question is - can we find any of these exiles?

During the COP15 biodiversity summit, countries agreed to the 30x30 target - to protect and restore 30% of land and sea on the planet by 2030. It’s been 6 months - so, has anything actually been achieved? Are we on course to reach that target? Rowan speaks to Alex Antonelli, professor of biodiversity and director of science at Kew Gardens in London, who’s also on an advisory group for the Convention on Biological Diversity.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Christie Taylor, Madeleine Cuff, Clare Wilson and Corryn Wetzel. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine atnewscientist.com. 

Events and links: 

New Scientist Neanderthals tour: newscientist.com/neanderthalfrance

New Scientist Book Club: https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/new-scientist-book-club/

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