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This week's magazine

18 February 2023

Issue 3426

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Editor's picks

Our top articles from the latest magazine

JGBD13 Llangollen, view from bridge of the river Dee

Environment

Why rivers are important for everything from biodiversity to wellbeing

Insight

Free
2JKPYAK OTTER on a rock in a river, UK.

Environment

Save Britain’s Rivers: Why we’re campaigning to rescue UK waterways

Leader

Free
Why the vaginal microbiome may be key to treating bacterial vaginosis

Health

Why the vaginal microbiome may be key to treating bacterial vaginosis

Features

Subscriber-only
Understanding human intentions will be the next big breakthrough in AI

Technology

Understanding human intentions will be the next big breakthrough in AI

Features

Subscriber-only
This image shows a small section of the Veil Nebula, as it was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This section of the outer shell of the famous supernova remnant is in a region known as NGC 6960 or ??? more colloquially ??? the Witch???s Broom Nebula. https://esahubble.org/images/heic1520a/

Space

We're hurtling into a new region of interstellar space. What now?

Features

Subscriber-only

Table of contents

Leaders

Environment

Save Britain’s Rivers: Why we’re campaigning to rescue UK waterways

The UK’s rivers are neglected, polluted and over-exploited. In partnership with the i, New Scientist’s new campaign will reveal what’s gone wrong and how to restore them

Leader

Free

2JKPYAK OTTER on a rock in a river, UK.

News

Environment

15 million people live in possible flood path for melting glaciers

Glacial lakes can cause flooding if an ice or rock dam holding back the water fails, putting an estimated 15 million people at risk, an analysis has found

News

Free

The Imja glacial lake in Nepal

Life

Do trees communicate via a 'wood wide web'? The evidence is lacking

News

Subscriber-only

Humans

Curly hair may have evolved to protect early humans from the sun

News

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Health

How prepared is the world for a pandemic of bird flu in people?

News

Subscriber-only

Health

Chronic fatigue syndrome linked to lower levels of some gut bacteria

News

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Health

Chronic fatigue syndrome linked to lower levels of some gut bacteria

News

Subscriber-only

Earth

Launching a huge dust cloud from the moon could ease global warming

News

Free

Mind

Your brain produces more entropy while you are awake

News

Subscriber-only

Space

Weird dust ring orbits the sun alongside Mercury and we don't know why

News

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Humans

Couples are most in love in Hungary, according to science

News

Subscriber-only

Humans

A three-year drought may have brought down the ancient Hittite empire

News

Free

Life

Orca mothers forgo future offspring to care for their full-grown sons

News

Subscriber-only

Space

Dwarf planet Quaoar has a weirdly big ring of debris encircling it

News

Free

Health

Newly found brain pathway could be key to reducing opioid addiction

News

Subscriber-only

Health

People with low incomes spend longer waiting for basic services in US

News

Free

Analysis

Technology

We don't need 'miracle' green technologies to save the planet

A focus on revolutionary solutions like carbon capture and geoengineering is slowing the uptake of existing answers to the problems of climate change, air pollution and energy security, says environmental engineer Mark Jacobson

Comment

Subscriber-only

We don't need 'miracle' green technologies to save the planet

Environment

Why rivers are important for everything from biodiversity to wellbeing

Insight

Free

Health

Does restricting calories slow down ageing? We simply don't know

Analysis

Subscriber-only

Technology

A message for today from last century's vast telephone exchanges

Comment

Subscriber-only

Aperture

Earth

Some of the stunning winners of the Sony World Photography Awards

From a sea turtle and diver swimming in harmony in Malaysia to a red-eyed tree frog in its Costa Rican rainforest home, take a peek at some of the winning entries in one of the most prestigious photography competitions

Regulars

Free

A red-eyed tree frog in its Costa Rican rainforest home

Features

Space

We're hurtling into a new region of interstellar space. What now?

As we speed towards a mysterious new bubble of interstellar space, new insights are revealing its exotic chemistry, strange waves and vast bubbles, and their ramifications for life on Earth

Features

Subscriber-only

This image shows a small section of the Veil Nebula, as it was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This section of the outer shell of the famous supernova remnant is in a region known as NGC 6960 or ??? more colloquially ??? the Witch???s Broom Nebula. https://esahubble.org/images/heic1520a/

Health

Why the vaginal microbiome may be key to treating bacterial vaginosis

Features

Subscriber-only

Technology

Understanding human intentions will be the next big breakthrough in AI

Features

Subscriber-only

Culture

Humans

Don’t Miss: Learning about how the first black hole image was taken

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

Culture

Subscriber-only

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) ??? a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration ??? was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 87 and its shadow. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole???s boundary ??? the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name ??? is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across. While this may sound large, this ring is only about 40 microarcseconds across ??? equivalent to measuring the length of a credit card on the surface of the Moon. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks ??? hydrogen masers ??? which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data ??? roughly 350 terabytes per day ??? which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers ??? known as correlators ??? at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration.

Physics

Quantum Bullsh*t review: Time to save quantum theory for science

Culture

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Space

The Longest Goodbye review: A poignant documentary on space psychology

Culture

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Humans

Hello Tomorrow! review: Selling holiday homes on the moon

Culture

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More

Environment

Help to create a global map of ocean microplastic pollution

You can contribute to a worldwide map of ocean microplastic pollution by conducting a scientific survey on your local beach, says Layal Liverpool

Regulars

Subscriber-only

Big Microplastic Survey. Layal?s Citizen Science Maker for 18th Feb. Photos from Layla's survey.

Puzzle #209: Can you work out how many houses there are on Long Road?

Regulars

Subscriber-only

Tom Gauld on the palchemists

Regulars

Free

Twisteddoodles puts a ring on it

Regulars

Free

Regulars

The strange story of the nuclear submarine and the super glue repair

Feedback ponders reports that a nuclear submarine was fixed with everyone’s favourite adhesive, while also detailing the latest thinking on the life-saving properties of coffee and the squeaky windscreen wiper problem

Regulars

Subscriber-only

The strange story of the nuclear submarine and the super glue repair

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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