Pure Science

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Today's huge AI models are composed of several billion numbers known as weights and changing just one of them can destroy their ability to function, leading to “gibberish” output

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Food in the US has a bad rap thanks to outbreaks caused by bacteria, plus processing, additives and food dyes, but the food supply is actually much less risky than people think

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About 40 years ago, researchers noticed a population of orcas had begun swimming around with dead fish on their heads, and now the craze is back

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Reperfusion technologies that can reanimate human brains are raising the possibility that death could be a reversible condition, even hours after a cardiac arrest

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Swapping classrooms for the woods doesn't appear to improve most children's mental health, but they may still enjoy it

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With lithium in short supply, sodium-ion batteries might offer cheap energy storage with less environmental impact

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Countries are meeting in South Korea this week to hash out the final details of a global treaty aimed at eliminating plastic pollution — here's what experts say it needs to include

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Most people born before 1968 have antibodies against flu viruses similar to the H5N1 strain circulating today, which might lower their risk of severe illness

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Projects to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by making the oceans less acidic are popping up all over the world – New Scientist visited one in New York City’s East river

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Most dogs aren't bred to feel at ease in our homes, but scientists studying puppy cognition have found ways you can help yours adapt

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Gene editing in the womb could be more effective than the same treatment after birth, as fetal cells are better able to take up the mRNAs coding for the necessary genetic machinery  

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Enigmatic phenomena called fast radio bursts might be caused by interstellar objects colliding with highly magnetised neutron stars

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A reluctant deal finalised at the COP29 climate summit isn't generous enough to encourage nations to submit more ambitious climate plans, delegates warn

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A rock that formed around 4.5 billion years ago on Mars before being blasted into space by a meteor strike and making its way to Earth contains telltale evidence that it was formed in the presence of hot water

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Earthen channels that span more than 640 kilometres show that pre-Mayan Mesoamericans built large-scale fish-trapping facilities earlier than previously thought

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When deciding whether to let people await trial at home or in jail, US judges can use a risk score algorithm. But it often makes harsher recommendations than humans do

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The unexpected discovery of microbial life in a piece of rock from an asteroid shows how hard it is to avoid contaminating samples brought back to Earth

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Kazuo Ishiguro’s heartbreaking dystopian novel of young love and organ donation has been superbly adapted for the stage

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There is no evidence that advertisers use covert recordings of conversations to target people with adverts, an accusation widely denied by the industry, and yet this belief persists

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Kelly Weinersmith, co-author of A City on Mars, the latest pick for our New Scientist Book Club, and Cat Bohannon lay out the reasons why it might not be such a great idea to be pregnant on another planet

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New technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are growing in scale –though their effect on the climate remains negligible

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Creatine is commonly associated with athletes and bodybuilders, but the popular supplement seems to have broad benefits on everything from ageing to brain function

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Arthropods belong to an evolutionary branch – the ecdysozoa – that contains about half of all animal species, and the earliest fossil evidence of the group dates back 550 million years

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Chloramine is used as a disinfectant in drinking water systems from the US to Australia. Research now shows it breaks down into a compound that may have negative health impacts

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In the first hearing test of live baleen whales, the animals detected much higher frequency sounds than expected, forcing researchers to reconsider how these mammals respond to predators – and humans

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Groups of wild chimpanzees with more complex tool-using behaviours tend to be genetically linked, providing evidence for cumulative culture in other apes

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Growing wood directly from stem cells could offer an alternative to cutting threatened hardwood trees, but it isn't clear if it has same properties as actual wood

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Spaghetti strands that are 200 times thinner than a human hair could be woven into bandages to help prevent infections

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Using four telescopes linked together, astronomers have captured an astonishing image of a huge star more than 160,000 light years away

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Space-time may not be continuous but instead made up of many discrete bits – and we may be able to see their effects near the edges of unusually bright black holes

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Endangered Ethiopian wolves feed on the nectar of red hot poker plants, and may transport pollen from flower to flower as they do so

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A flying robot uses its bird-like tail to maintain stability in flight – a technique that could enable more aerodynamic aircraft designs that use less fuel

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In Adam Roberts's Lake of Darkness, two spaceships meet to study a black hole. Their research comes to an abrupt halt, however, when crew members start dying horribly, says Emily H. Wilson

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When I moved back to York, UK, I was shocked by its garbage system, with limited recycling and no composting. But a bit of digging showed its brilliance, says Graham Lawton

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A recent scandal over food hygiene ratings shows how deception destroys trust within society. We need to fight back, says Jonathan R. Goodman

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A pair of photos, taken nearly six decades apart, reveals dramatic ice loss in the Arctic linked to climate change

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Neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston's book The Future Loves You presents a bold new take on dying

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Feedback is in awe of the authors of a new study in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, and how they handled requests from peer reviewers

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How to Feed the World, Vaclav Smil's "big numbers" book about future food supply, fails to address the impact of climate change

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Unbearable heat in China’s megacities reveals the future many of us face, but also suggests ways we can adapt

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Quantum computers could get a boost from artificial intelligence, thanks to a model created by Google DeepMind that cleans up quantum errors

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IBM has bet big on a modular approach to building quantum computers, and now it has successfully linked two quantum chips together to operate as a single device, a key step towards that goal

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A large planet has been spotted orbiting a dwarf star that is just 3 million years old, offering possible clues to how the worlds in our solar system came into being

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By 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in urban centres - that's just one reason why mayors will be essential to addressing the climate crisis, making vital adaptations to cities to make them more bearable in a warming...

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Using GPT-4o, the model behind ChatGPT, researchers have replicated the personality and behaviour of more than 1000 people, in an effort to create an alternative to focus groups and polling

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Many restaurants in countries such as England and the US now print calories on their menus, but some researchers question whether this is really tackling their obesity problem

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The best pictures we have of the sun yet have been delivered thanks to the Solar Orbiter spacecraft

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The effects of being in space can worsen an astronaut's working memory, processing speed and attention - which could be a problem for future missions

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Analysis of millions of galaxies upholds Albert Einstein’s ideas about gravity and also offers tantalising new hints of how dark energy may have evolved

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for the sixth test flight of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket. It aims to conduct the launch at 4pm Central Time (10pm UK). Here’s everything we know so far