#NewsCientist

Watson's death last month prompted sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson to read his acclaimed 1973 debut and find out what she'd been missing. She found it fascinating – but reflective of its time

The New Scientist Book Club read Silvia Park's near-future sci-fi novel Luminous in May, and had lots of good things to say (along with a few complaints)

Particles of light cannot be divided into smaller particles, but if you try to snip off the end of one, instead of shortening it multiplies

There is plenty of intriguing sci-fi on offer this month, whether it’s solar-powered cities from Adrian Tchaikovsky or a strange future from M. John Harrison

Until recently, the Pamir mountains in central Asia have bucked the global melting trend, but in 2025, the region’s glaciers experienced a massive loss of ice due to extreme heat

Satellite measurements show that in the early 2010s sea level rise suddenly accelerated to a rate of 4.1 millimetres per year, possibly in response to an increase in the rate of global warming

Creating quantum entanglement inside a solid material is tricky in the lab – but crystals buried in the earth could be growing it naturally. Now one scientist says he has proof he’s found them

Red-light therapy promises to treat everything from acne and hair loss to depression and chronic pain. Many of these claims are overhyped, but evidence suggests it can have healing powers

People often ask who might replace the nature broadcaster, who turns 100 this week. The truth is that he’s irreplaceable, but a wide range of voices are attempting to fill his shoes.

Genetic analysis of 1039 people buried in Britain between the Bronze Age and the Norman conquest highlights the impact of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings on the island’s ancestry

Gases collected from boiling mineral springs in Zambia contain the chemical signature of having come directly from the Earth’s mantle, a sign of a rupture in the tectonic plates and the possible beginning of a new continental boundary

Carbon credits bought by companies to offset their emissions really have reduced deforestation, but not by as much as credit developers claim, according to a rigorous analysis

The concept of a field plays a key role in particle physics, but what exactly is it? From its origins in the study of magnetism to the quantum fields of today, columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein goes exploring

PCOS will now be known as PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome), and for Alice Klein, who has the condition, it's been a long time coming

Genetically altered bacteria can synthesise gadusol, a naturally occurring compound found in zebrafish eggs that could be developed as an alternative to existing sunscreen products that can harm marine life

Six teeth roughly 400,000 years old have yielded some of the first ancient proteins thought to belong to Homo erectus, providing molecular clues to their relationships with other hominins

A study of soils around the Arctic and boreal forests has found that some wildfires are releasing carbon stored over millennia, meaning higher CO2 emissions than assumed

A Neanderthal tooth shows clear signs of human intervention to treat bacterial decay, showing that the earliest dentistry began at least 59,000 years ago

Rowan Hooper met ecologist Suzanne Simard under an oak tree in Kew Gardens, London, to talk about her new book, criticism of her work, and getting a call from James Cameron's people

Seismic surveys and sediment cores suggest that dozens of deep pockmarks on the sea floor were created when Arctic methane stores were disrupted by climate change after the last glacial maximum – and scientists warn it could happen again