Dinosaurs – New Scientist

Some people carry a chunk of Neanderthal DNA that appears to reduce the chance of miscarriage and increase fertility

On 27 May, NASA astronauts will launch to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, the first time a private company has flown humans into orbit

From loss of smell to stroke, people with covid-19 are reporting strange neurological issues that challenge our understanding of the disease – and how to treat it

The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic

Despite the UK having far more new daily coronavirus cases than many other countries, further restrictions are expected to be lifted in England and Scotland

The asteroid impact that formed Chicxulub crater and is linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs seems to have come in at the optimal angle to cause as much destruction as possible

The newly created US Space Force has provided a lot of laughs since its inception. A TV satire about it is almost as funny as the original, says Simon Ings

A small galaxy called Sagittarius passed close to the Milky Way four times in the past 6 billion years, which may have caused periods of intense star formation

Leading behavioural scientists have expressed concern that the Dominic Cummings scandal could encourage people to disregard the UK’s coronavirus restrictions

A blood test that measures changes in gene expression to estimate a person's age can also help predict whether a person is more likely to develop a chronic disease

There have been five particularly large extinction events in Earth’s history, and for the first time all of them have been linked to global warming

An analysis of fake news shared on social media service Weibo has found that posts flagged as fake news were more like to contain words associated with anger than real news

It isn’t true that dolphins have returned to Venice, but bees are benefitting from lower air pollution, and a drop in ocean traffic could be good for whales

Hundreds of trials are testing known antiviral drugs, as well as those that block immune responses to coronavirus, but we may need to build a covid-19 treatment from scratch

Hungry bumblebees can make plants flower up to a month earlier than usual by cutting holes in their leaves, which may help them adapt to climate change

Hardy and resilient welwitschia is unlike anything else on Earth, but climate change appears to be pushing these plants past their limits

Poaching is up, zoos are running out of money and conservation funding has been slashed. But there’s hope the pandemic could make biodiversity a higher priority

An estimated 2000 premature births seem to have been prevented by widespread HPV vaccination in Australia, possibly by protecting against damage to the cervix

A trans-Neptunian object known as 2002 TC302 appears to have a large moon at an unusually close orbit

Robots smaller than a red blood cell can move against the flow of blood when directed by magnets, which could help deliver drugs directly to cancer cells

Starring youngsters who investigate a mysterious signal that may be from spies or aliens, The Vast of Night is all a bit Stranger Things, says Gege Li

Using more than 50 years of satellite tracking data, a team found that green sea turtles will skip areas they don't know when looking for a foraging site even if they are suitable

Viruses, like the coronavirus causing covid-19, can evolve rapidly. Knowing how and why they change should help us beat this pandemic and prevent future ones

Watching birds is great entertainment, and there's fascinating physics behind how some get their colours, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

It is crucial to understand your five-appetite system and how ultraprocessed foods have crashed this set-up – especially as they are so popular in lockdown

The strange ways we name new species and the politics involved is explained in Stephen Heard's book Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider

Cosmologist Katie Mack spends her days pondering the end of everything. Whether the cosmos dies a slow heat death or winks out of existence tomorrow, she finds it helps put everyday troubles in perspective

The US has announced the Artemis Accords, a set of agreements that aim to facilitate diplomacy and cooperation on the moon while encouraging mining and exploration

By 2030, a plan by the European Commission aims to reverse the loss of biodiversity by planting 3 billion extra trees and dramatically expanding organic farming

A man who lived in Siberia about 14,000 years ago is the earliest known person in the world to have the specific mix of genes seen in people with Native American ancestry, analysis of DNA from a fossilised tooth has revealed

A galaxy made up of a rotating disc of dust and stars has been spotted just 1.5 billion years after the big bang, which changes our view of how these vast objects form

A spherical, solar-powered artificial eye is able to distinguish between different letters and could eventually be used as a visual aid for people who cannot see

Why do some healthy people develop severe symptoms? Do people who recover from covid-19 become immune to the coronavirus? Our answers to readers’ questions

To safely lift lockdown restrictions, countries need to have a low number of daily new cases and the capacity to conduct extensive testing and contact tracing

The first study to look for algae growing in Antarctica has found there are blooms dotted across the continent that may spread as the climate warms

Forget the idea of a single drive to eat – you have evolved distinct appetites for various foods. This makes it easier to eat exactly what you need, and helps explain the obesity epidemic

Analysis of cold war spy satellite images has revealed a long-term decline in biodiversity in Kazakhstan due to the expansion of agriculture over the past 50 years

Early data indicated that smokers may be less likely to be hospitalised with coronavirus, but broader analyses suggest smokers are actually at higher risk

The coronavirus lockdown will see global carbon emissions fall by a fifth compared with last year, but this dramatic drop won't slow climate change

While we're stuck indoors, it's a great time to get into cooking and baking. Our Science of Cooking series explains how to make foods such as sourdough bread, hand-pulled noodles and kimchi, and the theory behind the recipes

Theory and models forecast stronger storms in a warmer world, and now this trend has been seen in the real world using satellite data stretching back 40 years

People swimming at beaches and lakes across England this summer will probably never know if the water was dirty because routine sampling to test quality has stopped

A device inspired by fidget spinner toys can be used to diagnose urinary tract infections quickly and easily outside of the laboratory

Mud on the surface of Mars probably flows like lava does on Earth, which makes it difficult to tell whether Martian volcanoes are spewing lava or just mud

By testing bats in Gabon, researchers found seven coronaviruses that are new to science, but we don’t yet know if they could jump to people and cause illness

A mysterious space explosion nicknamed “the Cow” was probably caused by the explosion of a massive star which may have resulted in the birth of a small black hole

The covid-19 pandemic’s impact on hunger around the world could be worse than when food prices spiked calamitously in 2007 and 2008, a leading food security expert warns

A skin patch made of living blue-green algae speeds up wound healing in mice, and may help to treat chronic wounds in people with diabetes

Collecting microplastics on the ocean’s surface with three kinds of net has revealed far more stringy fibres of plastic than previous studies found

Unprecedented Arctic fires from last summer appear to have smouldered in the underground peat of the tundra through winter and reignited this month as snow melted

There is no evidence a herbal drink promoted by the president of Madagascar as a cure for covid-19 is effective, according to the head of the World Health Organization in Africa

An extinct Hawaiian volcano called Pūhāhonu is the largest on Earth, with a volume twice that of Mauna Loa, the next largest contender

Ventilation must be improved in buildings and aeroplanes to reduce the risk of covid-19 spreading via the air, according to scientists and safety experts

Tracing the shape of letters on the surface of the brain using an implant that electrically stimulates neurons enabled people who have lost their sight to “see” the letters

Imagining how four-dimensional objects would behave in our 3D world is hard, but an interactive simulation of how those objects move and interact could help

A woman who is colour-blind says she could see red berries in a green bush for the first time after receiving electroconvulsive therapy for depression

Mouse embryos injected with human stem cells grew for 17 days, creating chimeras with up to 4 per cent human cells, a step towards growing human organs for transplant

Heat-resistant algae made in a lab seem to protect coral from bleaching. They could help to save reefs if we fail to tackle global warming fast enough

Hypertension affects one in four adults and is usually treated with medication, even though lifestyle changes can reduce blood pressure. Here's what you need to know

Increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere may be boosting vegetation for now, but climate change is set to more than wipe out any gains, says James Wong

From providing a green alternative to plastics to reducing methane emissions and sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, seaweed could be the secret ingredient we need to clean up our planet

The coronavirus pandemic may be the biggest crisis most of us have faced, but we can’t afford to tackle our crises one at a time and let politicians off the hook on climate change

The Ivanpah Solar Energy Facility is one of the largest solar thermal energy plants in the world. It is spread out over 14 square kilometres and can power 140,000 homes every year

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft was launched earlier this year to study the sun, but it could soon be flying through the tail of comet ATLAS and may be able to study the icy object

Trials of a $1 covid-19 testing kit that produces results in under 10 minutes are under way in Senegal. If it works, it could be a vital tool in the surrounding region

A growing number of case studies suggest that covid-19 is linked to a higher rate of preterm births, and the virus may be able to cross the placenta to a fetus

Countries are increasingly sending out home coronavirus self-testing kits. But can the results from swabbing your own nose and throat be trusted?

Anyone can learn to solve cryptic crosswords. For beginners, we've put together a handy guide to how cryptic clues work and the types of wordplay that might be involved

Radiation from nuclear bomb test detonations in the cold war may have affected rainclouds, causing increases in rainfall thousands of kilometres away

Multiple indications seem to be showing that something is manipulating the universe beyond the four basic forces we know – and we are starting to work out what it is

Fossils have revealed that after the extinction of the dinosaurs, anchovies evolved into metre-long predators with sharp sabre-like teeth to devour other fish

David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, says the world's richest countries still have time to help protect the most fragile countries from the spread of covid-19

The UK government's "stay alert" messaging, use of statistics and outsourcing of coronavirus contact tracing have been criticised by an independent science committee

An AI trained to spot objects hidden against a background is able to see through camouflage and outperforms existing algorithms at the task

An experiment reveals how difficult it is to use Bluetooth on phones to determine if people have been in close enough contact to spread the coronavirus

The first modern humans to settle in Europe made pendants out of bear teeth – and a few thousand years later, Neanderthals started doing it too

Police are using surveillance drones to enforce social distancing rules worldwide during the covid-19 pandemic, raising concerns about privacy violations

Details of a UK plan to reduce carbon emissions by switching to green heating sources falls a long way short of a 2050 target set by government climate advisers – at the proposed funding rate, it will take 1500 years

In His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman touches on difficult philosophical and scientific questions about our existence. We spoke to him about science, daemons and dust

Ghana and South Africa are among the African countries now loosening coronavirus restrictions, but the two nations are taking very different approaches

Global warming has already made parts of the world – including cities in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates – hotter than the human body can withstand

About 80 per cent of stars in the Milky Way’s central bulge have relatively close encounters with another star, which can fling off any planets orbiting them

New Zealand is on track to eliminate covid-19 altogether, but keeping the virus out for good will be a challenge, and the economic impacts are likely to hurt

Mouse neurons trapped inside cages grow long appendages to connect to each other. Trapping the cells allows us to precisely control their growth

Making butter at home the traditional way is easy and the result is far more flavourful than the shop-bought version, says Sam Wong

Mercury is much denser than the other rocky planets in the solar system, and that may be because a collision vaporised its surface and the debris was blown away by the sun

Many ancient monuments are claimed to be aligned to celestial phenomena, but we now have the first statistical evidence this is the case for the Egyptian pyramids

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and improves recipients’ mental and financial well-being

The leading hypothesis for how the moon formed involves a collision between a Mars-sized object and Earth that would have boiled away elements like carbon, making its discovery on the moon a mystery

The BCG tuberculosis vaccine boosts the production of immune cells and this may explain how it protects newborns from dying of sepsis

A study of brain cells in a dish adds to growing evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be caused by herpes viruses, but antiviral treatment may help stop it

A small increase in water temperature near a Japanese nuclear power plant allowed tropical fish to colonise the area, suggesting global warming will drastically alter some marine ecosystems

Human behaviour is key to the spread of coronavirus, so government scientists are trying to control our decisions. Does it work, and what happens when they get it wrong?

People in lockdown are no longer trying to use technology to get their old lives back and that's a good thing, says Annalee Newitz

A hare's dream came out on top in the GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2020 competition, while images of a Bavarian forest, a flock of snow geese and a crocodile were also winners

Four decades ago, we introduced a standard way of encoding digital sound. Its first ever upgrade could lead to new genres of music and ways of experiencing sound

Code 8, a film about people with special powers that have been shunned by the world, is both a cracking crime caper and a comment on society, says Simon Ings

With social media, newspapers and politicians all espousing unverified covid-19 findings, use these seven signs to tell if a study should be treated with caution

Amid the global coronavirus outbreak, a second epidemic of preliminary, unverified and misinterpreted research has broken out. Can it be fixed?

To figure out what makes some people more vulnerable to severe cases of covid-19, we need to rethink what we know about infection