Astronomers witness the birth of a magnetar for the first time

Astronomers have, for the first time, observed the birth of a magnetar, an extremely magnetic, rapidly spinning type of neutron star. The breakthrough confirms that these exotic objects can power some of the brightest stellar explosions ever seen.

Euclid discovers the most ancient quasars in the universe

An island of calm at the violent heart of the galaxy

Where would you go to watch a star being born? Probably not the heart of the Milky Way, which is about the most violent neighborhood our galaxy has to offer, a maelstrom of gas churning so fast and so chaotically that you would think nothing could ever settle there long enough to collapse into a star. And yet stars do form in that turmoil, and astronomers have just begun to work out how by finding an unexpected pocket of calm in the chaos.

A strange LIGO signal could reveal the missing link behind dark matter

Primordial black holes have remained one of astronomy's most intriguing ideas for decades. Now, researchers at the University of Miami believe a recent gravitational wave detection may bring scientists closer to confirming that these ancient objects are real, a breakthrough that could also help solve the enduring mystery of dark matter.

Scientists stunned as bumble bees solve a classic intelligence test

Bumble bees have demonstrated an impressive ability that scientists once believed was limited to humans and other animals with much larger brains. In a new study, the insects successfully completed a completely unfamiliar object manipulation task despite never being taught how to solve it.

Evocative photos of Canadian Arctic win New Scientist Editors Award | New Scientist

Environment

Natalya Saprunova's photo series exploring coastal erosion and permafrost thaw across Inuvialuit territories in Canada has won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo 2026 competition

I’m the first person whose life was saved by CRISPR base editing | New Scientist

When the bone marrow transplant failed to treat my leukaemia, it was like: this is it, there’s nothing else now. The doctors were telling my parents it was a matter of weeks. Not years, not months, but weeks.

Can prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics help your ageing microbiome? | New Scientist

I spend a lot of time writing about biomedical sciences, and I have a weird and annoying tendency to develop symptoms of whatever condition I’m looking into. When I was working on a piece about chronic sinusitis, I developed a persistent snuffle. A recent article on hearing loss made me sure I was going deaf. When my subject was snoring, I snored louder and longer than ever. Maybe I’ve discovered a previously unknown form of hypochondria.

Black hole winds may be robbing giant galaxies of their future stars

Astronomers may be getting closer to solving a long-standing mystery about the universe's largest galaxies. Observations from the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, known as XRISM, are providing new evidence that supermassive black holes could be preventing these giant galaxies from forming as many stars as expected.

Almost the whole of Japan moved eastward after 2011 earthquake | New Scientist