Dinosaurs – New Scientist

The UK's net zero strategy does not detail any of the anticipated emissions savings that will stem from action on homes, transport, industry and more

An analysis of covid-19 infections among Iranian people casts further doubt on the idea that herd immunity can be achieved without vaccination

A controversial fossil site claimed to preserve a scene of destruction from the day the dinosaurs died seems to show the even happened in spring there and led to a turtle being impaled on a branch

A group of 140 UK universities says it will cut its carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035 and hit net zero by 2050, but critics say these targets don't go far enough, particularly on international travel

The extinct Japanese wolf is not the direct ancestor of dogs but its DNA shows it is more closely related to those ancestors than any other wolves yet found

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

Under the UK’s long-delayed Heat and Buildings Strategy, households in England and Wales will be encouraged to shift from gas boilers to heat pumps

The Trick on the BBC is a dramatisation of the Climategate scandal, when researchers were wrongly accused of faking evidence of global warming. The film is a correction of the record and evidence that it isn't too late to make up for lost time

One in four embryos made via IVF contain some seemingly abnormal cells and are typically considered too risky to use, but new research shows they are just as viable

Shano was the first of 200 koalas to receive a chlamydia vaccine that may help curb an epidemic that is ravaging koala populations across Australia

An artificial intelligence with more than 530 billion parameters - the largest ever - has achieved record scores at understanding human language

Everyone has a unique pattern of brain activity and it can be spotted after just 100 seconds inside a brain scanner

Extreme El Niño weather events caused by climate change could slow the recovery of southern right whale populations

A new type of strong, flexible, self-healing plastic can repair itself rapidly, even in salty or acidic water, which may be useful for divers or underwater pipes

A meteor shower called the Arids has appeared in southern hemisphere skies, as predicted by astronomers

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) who take the contraceptive pill have three-quarters of the diabetes risk as those with PCOS who don’t

Snakes typically ate insects before the mass extinction event that wiped out the non-bird dinosaurs, but then they broadened diets to include birds and mammals

A four-legged robot made by Ghost Robotics and outfitted with a sniper rifle and night-vision cameras was displayed at a meeting of the Association of the United States Army

A DNA analysis of museum snake specimens has revealed two previously unrecognised species of Asian pit viper, both from the eastern Tibetan plateau

The light from a distant star appears to be orbited by something that is continually changing shape and size, possibly clouds of dust from repeated collisions

US adults are eating more highly processed junk food now than they were 20 years ago, with the trend particularly clear among those without a college degree

The care situation for long covid patients in England is improving, but a winter spike in cases will put the country’s 89 specialist clinics under new pressure

A NASA spacecraft called Lucy is about to blast off to study the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter, which are pristine relics from the early solar system

For decades, clinical trials to test stroke treatments haven't included enough women – a disparity that could be hampering efforts to develop better care

The first analysis of species that have evolved in isolation for millions of years has found that many – including Australia’s western swamp turtle – are under threat

The blood-brain barrier prevents drugs from entering the brain, but now doctors have bypassed it to treat four women with cancer for the first time

Twenty-five years ago, Chinese scientists revealed the first feathered dinosaur. Since then, they have unearthed a treasure trove of exquisitely preserved specimens that put dinosaurs in a whole new light

A new space race, plus Facebook feels a distubance in the Force and the reason why hippos make such great units, in Feedback’s weird weekly round-up

Decades ago, Einstein concocted a theory in which space doesn't just curve, but swirls like a cyclone. Now it is making a comeback because it could fix several of the biggest problems in cosmology

The success of coronavirus vaccines has been a rare bright spot in the devastation of the pandemic, and the mRNA technology behind some of them offers a way to revolutionise how we treat many illnesses

The Hubble Space Telescope's journey to the sky was a bumpy one, but it was well worth the effort, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Fossilised plants tell stories of Earth’s capricious past. By participating in the Fossil Atmospheres project, you can help researchers uncover them, find Layal Liverpool

Psychology is split on what exactly disgust is, but the evidence is starting to come in, says Ana Aznar

New Scientist's weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn't miss

Laurent Ballesta has won Wildlife Photographer of the Year for an image that captures groupers during their annual reproductive season

A one-sided documentary claims that zoos are essential to reversing the sixth mass extinction, skipping over many of the nuances of captive breeding

Pat Shipman’s book, Our Oldest Companions: the story of the first dogs, explores the surprising story of how humans and dogs came to join forces

UK start-up Opteran Technologies has demonstrated a system that can guide a robot through a maze using far less energy and weight than conventional approaches

The surface of Venus may have remained extremely hot since its formation, meaning that water in the atmosphere never had a chance to fall to the surface

Astronomers have spotted a Jupiter-like planet in its original orbit around a white dwarf for the first time

Some countries will spend less on power by 2100, but middle-income countries in the tropics and subtropics will spend more to keep buildings cool

Faeces samples from an Iron Age salt mine have been genetically sequenced, revealing traces of fungi found in blue cheese and beer

The mRNA technique used in covid-19 vaccines recruits our bodies to make their own medicines. That could revolutionise treatments for all manner of conditions – and make personalised therapies cheaper and easier

The US now has a 35 per cent global market share in bitcoin mining, the largest in the world – the electricity to produce the cryptocurrency may come mostly from coal

The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy watchdog, finds that a strong switch to renewables, energy efficiency and electric cars would cushion households against fossil fuel price shocks

African penguins identify each other using unique features of their physical appearance and vocal calls – making them the second group of birds after crows known to do so

Quantum computers may one day break encryption, and security researchers say intelligence agencies may already be storing encrypted data with a plan to crack it in future

Ahead of the COP26 climate summit, New Scientist has assessed which countries are ahead when it comes to cutting carbon emissions

The oak processionary moth, a native of southern Europe that damages oak trees, is invasive in the UK and is now spreading more rapidly there – despite efforts to control it

A source of radio waves, nicknamed "Andy's object", coming from the direction of the centre of the galaxy has left astronomers puzzled

Gut bacteria engineered to produce a signal when they eat chunks of DNA from cancer cells could form an early warning test for the disease, tests in mice suggest

Breadfruit – which is a bit like a potato that grows on trees – is projected to grow well throughout this century, even as staples like rice are hit by rising temperatures

A report by the UK's Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee says the government made a "serious" error in not responding faster to the coronavirus pandemic

A sea cucumber called Chiridota heheva lives on deep-sea vents and cold seeps where there is little oxygen, and has evolved to survive in these toxic environments

Women with concussion are less likely to conceive in the two years after their head injury than women who injured another part of their body

Safer, an oil tanker in the Red Sea, has been abandoned and could unleash a catastrophic oil spill that would leave millions of people without food or clean water

Tobacco seeds discovered in the remains of an ancient fire suggest people have been using the plant for much longer than we thought

Football fans cheering on their team can influence match results, as a lack of spectators during lockdowns saw a dip in home advantage

About 3.2 billion years ago, microbes began to colonise land for the first time, and geological evidence suggests they fed on energy-rich chemicals in volcanic lava

Fish faeces plays an important role in the carbon cycle of the ocean, but industrial fishing has lead to a lack of defecation

After a gruelling 107-day lockdown to curb a delta covid-19 outbreak, Sydneysiders are being let out and about again after reaching 70 per cent vaccination rates

Disney's Ron’s Gone Wrong is a familiar story about a child and a robotic friend, but it soon moves into more interesting territory about the dilemmas around online and offline life

Deepfake tools that mimic a particular individual's voice from just a few snippets of audio are good enough to trick humans and bypass voice recognition systems

The idea of a renewable energy hub on an island in the North Sea has been studied before, but now the National Grid in the UK is in discussions with its equivalents in two other countries to build one

Lunar samples brought back to Earth by the Chang’e 5 spacecraft seem to be less than 2 billion years old, meaning the moon had volcanic activity more recently than researchers expected

Circadian clocks help living things keep time, and one has now been assembled from scratch in the lab to find out more about how they work

Mars used to have flowing water, which filled Jezero crater with an enormous lake. Images of cliff faces taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover show the lake used to flood 3.7 billion years ago

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded $2 million to a team of quadruped and flying robots capable of exploring underground caves

The New Horizons spacecraft has found two pairs of unusually close asteroids in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper belt

Snowshoe hares turn white in autumn to blend into their snowy environment – but surprisingly, they thrive even when the snow doesn’t fall

The WHO has approved the first vaccine against malaria in the world, for use in children in sub-Saharan Africa

Ground sloths are often depicted as herbivorous giants of the ice age, but a fresh analysis suggests a 3-metre-long species that once lived in South America also ate some meat

A versatile robot inspired by birds can walk, balance on a slackline, skateboard and even fly – a mix of skills that could be useful for monitoring power lines or space exploration

Massage really does help damaged muscles heal, because pummelling the tissue clears it of immune cells that interfere with tissue regrowth, a study in mice suggests

The idea that recollections of traumatic experiences can be locked away only to suddenly re-emerge years later has once again become a hotly debated issue, with serious implications for investigations of historical abuse

Hopes of developing artificial general intelligence and a truly useful quantum computer are looking less fanciful thanks to recent breakthroughs

In Eating to Extinction, Dan Saladino argues that our health, our culture and the environment will suffer unless we broaden our dietary horizons

Barry Webb's amazing image of a woodlouse munching on a gelatinous slime mould has taken the top prize at the New Scientist Photography Awards 2021

New Scientist's weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn't miss

Airflow induced by electric fields, known as ionic wind, has already propelled a small aircraft – now engineers think it could help to ease the clean-energy transition and protect infrastructure from natural winds

There is an image circulating on social media looking at genetically modified corn, but its origins are extremely dubious, writes James Wong

Archive footage from Scotland's industrial history tells a tale of people, landscape and environment as the nation prepares to host the COP26 summit, says Simon Ings

There are ways of keeping your garden growing that don't involve wasting huge quantities of water. Clare Wilson explains how

No one is better qualified to write a space thriller than Chris Hadfield, who has been there and lived to tell the tale. His debut novel, The Apollo Murders, is an accomplished story

The frequency of felines in our dreams, plus problems with fridge foraging and more nominative determinism in Feedback's weird weekly round-up

Legislation working its way through the European Parliament could see a complete ban on the use of artificial intelligence in law enforcement

Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness that is becoming more common in many countries, could be eradicated using a drug that kills the disease-causing bacterium

Tardigrades, tough microscopic animals that can survive the vacuum of space, don’t fossilise well – a new specimen from ancient amber is just the third ever found

The UK needs to cut its energy use to meet climate change goals, but the government is focused on increasing efficiency rather than measures to cut demand

Ivermectin has gained notoriety as an unproven drug for preventing or treating covid-19. Now people in the UK are trying to find ways to use it

The United Arab Emirates is planning to land on an asteroid in 2033, after a quick visit to Venus

The 2021 Nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to Benjamin List and David MacMillan for developing catalysts that produce molecules of a desired left or right "handedness"

Gigantic neural networks that write with remarkable fluency have led some experts to suggest that scaling up current technology will lead to human-level language abilities – and ultimately true machine intelligence

This interactive dashboard tracks the world’s recorded covid-19 cases and deaths, plus vaccines administered

Huge virtual events including Ariana Grande concerts held inside the video game Fortnite are the latest example of Silicon Valley's new favourite buzzword: a metaverse

Eggs evolved more than a billion years ago, whereas chickens have been around for just 10,000 years. So the riddle is easily solved…or is it?

Efforts to make malaria history have had huge success in recent years. Now, there’s hope that the long-awaited RTS,S vaccine can go the last mile

African American woman whose cancer cells were the source of the HeLa cell line – the first immortalised human cell line

Alan Turing was one of the most influential British figures of the 20th century and often considered the father of modern computer science.

Quantum physics underlies how atoms work, and so why chemistry and biology work as they do. You, me and the gatepost – at some level at least, we’re all dancing to the quantum tune.