NASA is performing an unprecedented medical evacuation from the ISS
One of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station is undergoing a “medical situation”, forcing NASA to bring the crew home early for the first time ever ⌘ Read more

Microbiome study hints that fibre could be linked to better sleep
Evidence is mounting that specific gut bacteria are linked to sleep conditions, which may open the doors to dietary recommendations aiming to boost the quality of our slumbers ⌘ Read more

Why does the United States want to buy Greenland?
The ice-covered island may be strategically important, but it’s unclear that it could be a commercially viable source of minerals and oil in the near future ⌘ Read more

Quantum neural network may be able to cheat the uncertainty principle
Calculations show that injecting randomness into a quantum neural network could help it determine properties of quantum objects that are otherwise fundamentally hard to access ⌘ Read more

Man whose gut made its own alcohol gets relief from faecal transplant
A man with auto-brewery syndrome, a rare condition in which gut microbes produce intoxicating levels of alcohol, has been successfully treated with faeces from a super donor ⌘ Read more

‘Knitted’ satellite launching to monitor Earth’s surface with radar
A standard industrial knitting machine has been modified to produce fabrics from tungsten wire coated in gold, which are used to form the dish on the CarbSAR satellite ⌘ Read more

Tree bark microbiome has important overlooked role in climate
Tree bark has a total surface area similar to all of the land area on Earth. It is home to a wide range of microbial species unknown to science, and they can either take up or emit gases that have a warming effect on the climate ⌘ Read more

City-sized iceberg has turned into a giant swimming pool
Satellite photos show meltwater on the surface of iceberg A23a collecting in an unusual way, which may be a sign that the huge berg is about to break apart ⌘ Read more

Red tattoo ink causes man to lose all his hair and stop sweating
A man’s severe reaction to a tattoo, which made all his hair fall out and destroyed his sweat glands, has reignited concerns about the immune effects of some tattoo inks ⌘ Read more

Exercise may relieve depression as effectively as antidepressants
A comprehensive review confirms the benefits of exercise for treating depression, even if the exact reasons remain unclear ⌘ Read more

Weight regain seems to occur within 2 years of stopping obesity drugs
Drugs like Ozempic have transformed how we treat obesity, but a review of almost 40 studies shows it doesn’t take long for people to regain weight if they come off them ⌘ Read more

Hunting with poison arrows may have begun 60,000 years ago in Africa
A collection of arrow points excavated in South Africa has provided the oldest direct evidence of hunters deploying plant-based poisons on their weapons, a practice that has continued into modern times in some traditional cultures ⌘ Read more

Hominin fossils from Morocco may be close ancestors of modern humans
The jawbones and vertebrae of a hominin that lived 773,000 years ago have been found in North Africa and could represent a common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans ⌘ Read more

Super-low-density worlds reveal how common planetary systems form
Most planetary systems contain worlds larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and the low-density planets around one young star should help us understand how such systems form ⌘ Read more

How rethinking your relationship with time could give you more of it
You might feel like the days and weeks are slipping by. Here is how one psychologist says you can shift your experience of time ⌘ Read more

CAR T-cell therapy makes ageing guts heal themselves
Immune cells are most commonly engineered to kill cancers, but now, scientists have shown the technique makes the gut lining of older mice resemble that of younger mice, raising hopes that the same approach could work in people ⌘ Read more

The first quantum fluctuations set into motion a huge cosmic mystery
The earliest acoustic vibrations in the cosmos weren’t exactly sound – they travelled at half the speed of light and there was nobody around to hear them anyway. But Jim Baggott says from the first moments, the universe was singing ⌘ Read more

Jellyfish sleep about as much as humans do – and nap like us too
The benefits of sleep may be more universal than we thought. We know it helps clear waste from the brain in humans, and now it seems that even creatures without brains like ours get similar benefits ⌘ Read more

The secret weapon that could finally force climate action
An ambitious form of climate modelling aims to pin the blame for disasters – from floods to heatwaves – on specific companies. Is this the tool we need to effectively prosecute the world’s biggest carbon emitters? ⌘ Read more

US will need both carrots and sticks to reach net zero
Modelling suggests both carbon taxes and green subsidies will be necessary to decarbonise the US economy, but the inconsistent policies of successive presidents are the “worst case” scenario ⌘ Read more

Northern Greenland ice dome melted before and could melt again
The Prudhoe ice dome disappeared during a warm period 7000 years ago. Global warming could cause similar temperatures by 2100, showing the ice sheet’s vulnerability ⌘ Read more

What if the idea of the autism spectrum is completely wrong?
For years, we’ve thought of autism as lying on a spectrum, but emerging evidence suggests that it comes in several distinct types. The implications for how we support autistic people could be profound ⌘ Read more

Weird clump in the early universe is piping hot and we don’t know why
A galaxy cluster in the early universe is 10 times hotter than it ought to be, which may reshape how we think these enormous structures formed ⌘ Read more

El Niño was linked to famines in Europe in the early modern period
A study of 160 European famines between 1500 and 1800 shows that El Niño weather events led to the onset of some famines and extended the duration of others ⌘ Read more

The best new popular science books of January 2026
A host of new science books are due to hit shelves in January, by authors including Claudia Hammond, Deborah Cohen and Daisy Fancourt ⌘ Read more

2026 will shed light on whether a little-known drug helps with autism
The US government is approving the drug leucovorin to address rising rates of autism, despite limited evidence that it works. This year, results from the largest trial yet should give more insight into its potential ⌘ Read more

A strange kind of quantumness may be key to quantum computers’ success
Researchers at Google have used their Willow quantum computer to demonstrate that “quantum contextuality” may be a crucial ingredient for its computational prowess ⌘ Read more

The best new science fiction books of January 2026
Big hitter Peter F. Hamilton has a new sci-fi novel out this month – and Booker winner George Saunders ventures into speculative fiction with his latest book, Vigil ⌘ Read more

Ghostly particles might just break our understanding of the universe
An analysis of several experiments aimed at detecting the mysterious neutrino has identified a hint of a crack in the standard model of particle physics ⌘ Read more

Was our earliest ancestor a knuckle-dragger, or did it walk upright?
Did Sahelanthropus, which lived 7 million years ago, walk on two legs like a modern human? It’s complicated ⌘ Read more

Gargantuan black hole may be a remnant from the dawn of the universe
Astronomers were puzzled by a black hole around 50 million times the mass of the sun with no stars, spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope – now simulations suggest it could be a primordial black hole, something we have never seen before ⌘ Read more

Our verdict on The Player of Games: Iain M. Banks is still a master
The New Scientist Book Club has just finished our December read, Iain M. Banks’s sci-fi novel The Player of Games - and most of us were fans of this big-thinking Culture tale ⌘ Read more

The challenges of writing from the perspective of a sex robot
The author of the award-winning science fiction novel Annie Bot, the January read for the New Scientist Book Club, on how she created her startling protagonist ⌘ Read more

Read an extract from Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
In this extract from the award-winning science fiction novel Annie Bot, the January read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to Sierra Greer’s protagonist, a sex robot called Annie ⌘ Read more

Murder victim discovered to have two sets of DNA due to rare condition
A woman’s body has been found to consist of varying proportions of male and female cells because of an extremely rare form of chimerism ⌘ Read more

Rare Saturn-sized rogue planet is first to have its mass measured
Researchers have confirmed the mass of a free-floating planet thanks to a lucky convergence of ground- and space-based telescopes ⌘ Read more

Chess can be made fairer by rearranging the pieces
Chess960 involves shuffling the pieces at the back of the board, and an analysis suggests doing so can increase the complexity of the game to favour white, black or neither player ⌘ Read more

The 3 things you should do this New Year to foster a positive mindset
Olivia Remes, a mental health researcher at the University of Cambridge, says these are the three things everyone should do this New Year to cultivate a more positive mindset ⌘ Read more

Could 2026 be the year we start using quantum computers for chemistry?
Understanding the chemical properties of a molecule is an inherently quantum problem, making quantum computers a good tool for the job – and we may start seeing this take off in 2026 ⌘ Read more

Three supermassive black holes have been spotted merging into one
Astronomers have found a system of three supermassive black holes, all actively feeding, that appear to be combining into a single system – a rare event that will help elucidate the physics of complex mergers ⌘ Read more

The duo kite-skiing 4000 kilometres across Antarctica for science
An explorer and a glaciologist are kite-skiing across Antarctica with a ground-penetrating radar to gather data that will help understand the past and future of the ice sheet ⌘ Read more

Star that seemed to vanish more than 130 years ago is found again
In 1892, astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard thought he saw a bright star near Venus, but then it vanished. We may now know why ⌘ Read more

The cassette tape made a comeback in 2025 thanks to a DNA upgrade
With a storage capacity of 36 petabytes, a DNA-based cassette tape can hold every song every recorded, and it could be on the market within five years ⌘ Read more

A controversial experiment threatened to kill the multiverse in 2025
A photon was apparently detected in two places at once in a twist on the classic double-slit experiment, but many physicists didn’t accept the results ⌘ Read more

Benefits of mRNA cancer vaccines could exceed $75 billion in US alone
An analysis of ongoing trials suggests that mRNA cancer vaccines have the potential to deliver health benefits worth $75 billion each year in the US alone ⌘ Read more

The best and most ridiculous robots of 2025 in pictures
Some of the world’s most advanced robots showed off their skills at tech shows and sporting events, doing everything from cooking shrimp to running half marathons ⌘ Read more

Inside world’s ultimate X-ray machine before it becomes more powerful
The Linac Coherent Light Source in California has been firing record-breaking X-ray pulses for years, but now it’s due for a shutdown and an upgrade. When it is turned back on, it will be even more powerful ⌘ Read more

Microsoft made a splash with a controversial quantum computer in 2025
The Majorana 1 quantum computer was hailed as a significant breakthrough by Microsoft, but critics say the company has yet to prove it actually works despite a year of debate ⌘ Read more

Gene-edited babies are the future – but these CRISPR start-ups aren’t
Three start-ups are aiming to create gene-edited babies. Columnist Michael Le Page has no doubt that editing our offspring will one day become routine, but not like this ⌘ Read more