Ocean warming has led to widespread bleaching of warm-water corals Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images Global warming has accelerated and is now happening twice as fast as in previous decades, meaning major climate catastrophes could happen sooner than expected. Earth was warming by about 0.18°C per decade prior to 2013-14. Since then, it has been heating up…
What’s in the box? Professor25/Getty Images Suppose I showed you a box and asked you to guess what is inside, without providing any more details. You might think this is completely impossible, but the nature of the container provides some information – the contents must be smaller than the box, for example, while a solid…
How can we spot if someone is lying to us? There are no easy tells Margarita Young/Alamy Poisonous PeopleLeanne ten BrinkeSimon & Schuster It seems only fitting that a book about dark personalities opens with the case study of a psychopath. But the author’s choice isn’t who you might have been expecting. Instead of a…
Representation of the electrons in the “half-Möbius”-shaped molecule IBM Research and the University of Manchester Chemists have discovered a new molecular shape, and it is twice as odd as the twisty Möbius strip. The Möbius strip is a looped band with a twist, such that something tiny, such as an ant, would have to go…
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 A shedload of bears Following the use of golden retrievers as a unit of ice mass, Feedback has found our inbox filling up with more examples of…
Amyloid plaques in the brain are a defining feature of Alzheimer’s disease, but what if the roots of the condition start elsewhere in the body? Alamy Alzheimer’s disease has long been viewed as something that originates inside the brain, but an in-depth genomic analysis suggests it may initially be triggered by inflammation in distant organs…
Magic mushrooms are one of the psychedelics showing real medical potential John Moore/Getty Images A single dose of psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – produces rapid reductions in symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to the first placebo-controlled trial to test the psychedelic for the mental health condition. The effects also seem…
A pygmy long-fingered possum Flannery et al Two marsupial species that scientists thought had gone extinct at least 6000 years ago have been found alive on the island of New Guinea. The ring-tailed glider and pygmy long-fingered possum, previously known to science only from fossils found in Australia, have now been found and photographed in…
Higher sea levels put cities at risk of flooding caused by storm surges, as seen in Sri Lanka during Cyclone Ditwah in 2025 Thomas Wyness / Alamy Stock Photo Almost all research on the impacts of future sea-level rise has assumed today’s sea levels are lower than they actually are due to a “methodological blind…
Falling cats seem to twist the front half of their body first Evolve/Photoshot/ZUMAPRESS/Alamy When falling cats turn themselves the right way up before they hit the ground, they have a secret trick: a region of their spine that is exceptional at twisting. “We compared the flexibility of the thoracic spine and lumbar spine in cats,…
