Science

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, but falling water levels could leave the city and oil infrastructure cut off from the sea VANO SHLAMOV/AFP via Getty Images Ports, oil drilling rigs and coastal settlements will be marooned kilometres from the shore as climate change drives water

A methane plume at least 4.8 kilometres long billows into the atmosphere south of Tehran, Iran NASA/JPL-Caltech The world has more ways than ever to spot the invisible methane emissions responsible for a third of global warming so far. But according to a report released at the COP29 climate summit, methane “super-emitters” rarely take action

Do you speak AI? Shutterstock/Ole.CNX Microsoft has created an artificial language that allows AI models to talk to each other faster and more efficiently than in English, with the hope that groups of models will be able to team up without having to resort to clumsy and sprawling human words. Many researchers believe that using

Attempts to prevent Australian children from accessing social media are likely to fail, and could do more harm than good View Source Here

A genetic flaw dooms half of all crested newts to die before they hatch – now we know how this baffling evolutionary quirk came about View Source Here

Popular semaglutide-based drugs used for weight loss may reduce chronic and acute pain, which could make them a promising alternative to opioids View Source Here

Driverless cars can now do doughnuts and drift like stunt drivers, skidding sideways around corners while maintaining control, which might help the cars recover from dangerous situations View Source Here

Measuring the massive coral Inigo San Felix/National Geographic Society In the south-west Pacific, off the coast of one of the tropical Solomon Islands, a giant structure beneath the water’s surface has just been identified as the world’s largest known coral. Visiting the remote site in mid-October, a team of scientists and film-makers from National Geographic

Wildfires in the tropics drove some increase in CO2 emissions but the bulk was driven by burning fossil fuels Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels in 2024 are set to blow past last year’s record levels, dashing hopes this year will see the planet-warming emissions peak. “Reducing emissions is more

The International Space Station MSFC/NASA Samantha Harvey, who has won the UK’s top fiction award, the Booker prize, for her novel Orbital, has created a new genre: nature writing about space. “I see it as a kind of space pastoral,” Harvey told the New Scientist podcast earlier in the year. “I wanted to see what

Red kites have been found with high levels of rodenticides in their livers TheOtherKev/Pixabay Raptors across England are being killed by the widespread misuse of rat poisons and the problem is getting worse, in spite of a UK government prevention scheme, according to a report from Wild Justice, a not-for-profit environmental group. “The degree of

The northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides) brings unexpected ecosystem benefits All Canada Photos/Alamy Two years after Mount St Helens erupted in 1980, a team of researchers helicoptered in a gopher to the ash-covered landscape. Decades later, the activity of that single gopher burrowing for a single day may have helped the decimated ecosystem regrow by

Ice collapsing into the water at Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina R.M. Nunes/Alamy Even a few years’ delay in reaching net-zero emissions will have repercussions for hundreds or even thousands of years, leading to warmer oceans, more extensive ice loss in Antarctica and higher temperatures around the world. Nations around the

The universe is full of matter Mohd. Afuza/Shutterstock The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or mathematician to tell you about fascinating ideas from their corner of the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time here. As an astrophysicist, I

Allowing for moves that create quantum superpositions makes a quantum version of a Rubik’s cube incredibly complex, but not impossible to solve View Source Here

Elephants are masters at using a hose – considered a complex tool because of its flexibility, length and the physics of flowing water. Researchers studying three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) at Berlin Zoo were surprised to see how nimbly they manipulated a hose to shower themselves and seemed to understand how to get the best

A chimpanzee tackling a number test on a touch screen Akiho Muramatsu The pressure of a watching audience can have positive or negative effects on human performance, and it turns out the same is true of our closest relatives. Christen Lin at Kyoto University, Japan, and his colleagues tested a group of six chimpanzees housed

Four-legged robot dogs learned to perform new tricks by practising in a virtual platform that mimics real-world obstacles – a possible shortcut for training robots faster and more accurately View Source Here

Dangerous radiation reaches Mars at levels we aren’t exposed to on Earth, which makes the Red Planet a particularly dangerous place to be during pregnancy View Source Here

Hairy animals including mice and dogs shake themselves dry atikinka2/Getty Images If you have ever been close to a dog after it has gone for a swim, you have probably been sprayed with water flinging from its fur. We now know the brain pathway that causes animals to rapidly wiggle themselves dry – a phenomenon