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
Alyssa Tapley received life-saving CRISPR treatment Alyssa Tapley
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
Do prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics help restore balance to the gut microbiome? Joshua Earle/UnSplash
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
The fishing port of Kesennuma, Japan, in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake in 2011
Could cosmic memory explain dark matter, dark energy, and black holes?
For more than a century, physics has been built on two great theories. Einstein’s general relativity explains gravity as the bending of space and time.
Quantum mechanics governs the world of particles and fields. Both work brilliantly in their own domains. But put them together and contradictions appear – especially when it comes to black holes, dark matter, dark energy and the origins of the cosmos.
New Scientist recommends an excellent look at the future of work | New Scientist
Employers wanting staff to be more like machines isn’t new, says O’Connor