Most brain organoids lack blood cells, limiting their use Imago/Alamy A tiny version of the developing cerebral cortex – a brain region involved in thinking, memory and problem-solving – has been grown in a lab dish, with a system of blood vessels that closely resembles the real thing. This clump of cells is one of…
An artist’s illustration of life in Earth’s oceans at the time of the Huayuan biota Dinghua Yang An extraordinary 512-million-year-old fossil site has been discovered in southern China, preserving in vivid detail almost an entire ecosystem from a time shortly after Earth’s first mass extinction event. The fossils date from the Cambrian period, which began…
Malta is one of the Mediterranean’s most remote islands. The nearest land is Sicily, about 85 kilometres north. Today, with ferries and planes, getting there is light work, but in the distant past, Malta was difficult to reach. It’s far enough from Sicily that you can’t see it over the horizon, at least from ground…
Epstein-Barr virus is a very common infection, but that doesn’t make it harmless Science History Images/Alamy About 1 in 10 people carry genetic variants that make them particularly vulnerable to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a ubiquitous pathogen that is increasingly being linked to conditions like multiple sclerosis and lupus. The finding, which comes from a…
It is no secret that money shapes our health. From pharmaceutical ads to research agendas, money has always been part of medicine. What’s new is the scale, speed and intimacy of it all. A wave of new players is nudging our everyday health choices, often stepping into the cracks left by overstretched healthcare systems. And…
Athletes wearing a friction-reducing swimsuit dominated the 2008 Beijing Olympics Adam Pretty/Getty Images Friction: A biographyJennifer R. Vail, Harvard University Press IN 2009, World Aquatics banned a specific type of swimsuit from all international competitions in water sports, ruling that it gave athletes an unfair advantage. The development of this swimsuit included using NASA’s testing…
Cornflowers and poppies were once seen as “troublesome weeds” Heather Drake/Alamy One of the most common claims in traditional gardening lore is that weeds only grow in poor soil. Improve the fertility of your plot, and the weeds will disappear. If true, this simple trick could save gardeners hours of work, just by adding plant…
Feedback is New Scientist’s popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com Online psychics If you are engaged in pseudoscience, it isn’t a good idea to send Feedback a press release about it. We will only make fun of…
Pilot-wave theory may act like waves steering bottles on the sea Philip Thurston/Getty Images Beyond the QuantumAntony Valentini, Oxford University Press Physics, it is fair to say, hasn’t gone to plan. After decades of hopeful searching, dark matter still hasn’t been directly detected. We found the Higgs boson, but nothing to pave the way forward….
Health workers by a triage tent for people suspected of having covid‑19 in Lisbon, Portugal, in April 2020 PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images The Great ShadowSusan Wise Bauer, St. Martin’s Press It may be perverse to say it, but this is a fine time to publish a book about the history of sickness….
