New Scientist Space - Cosmology

As work begins on building the US’s first high-speed rail service – linking Los Angeles to Las Vegas – analysts say the project could serve as a blueprint for similar projects across the country

In the 1920s, Erwin Schrödinger wrote an equation that predicts how particles-turned-waves should behave. Now, researchers are perfectly recreating those predictions in the lab

"Advanced recycling" promises to convert dirty, mixed waste plastic into brand new plastic time and time again. It is a major step towards creating a circular economy and fighting climate change

The finding that managed fires burn a much greater area than thought means we may be underestimating the increase in wildfires due to global heating

Forensic investigators can reliably measure drug and explosive residue using gels that lift fingerprint samples

Shading the planet by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere might stave off ice sheet collapse, modelling studies suggest, but we are running out of time

An Australian bull ant is the first animal known to use the patterns produced by polarised moonlight to navigate its environment

20 April is weed's unofficial holiday. In honour of the special day, we collected our answers to all your cannabis questions. This is the science of 420

It can be difficult to figure out how to move a spacecraft from one orbit to another, but a trick from knot theory can help find spots where shifting orbits becomes easy

Carbon storage calculations don’t always take into account the effects of animals – when they eat, defecate and die, they help store lots of carbon

By measuring how birds’ vocal muscles move while they are asleep and using a physical model for how those muscles produce sound, researchers have pulled songs from the minds of sleeping birds

Identical twins seem to experience more similar levels of pleasure when listening to music than non-identical twins, which suggests it has a genetic element

Curved wing tips inspired by the world's heaviest flying bird could enhance the efficiency of wind turbines by of 10 per cent, according to simulations

A site in Siberia has evidence of human presence 417,000 years ago, raising the possibility that hominins could have reached North America much earlier than we thought

Teams of staff usually return e-scooters to where they will be needed, but adapted scooters that can balance and stop themselves, and be controlled remotely, are a step towards autonomous ones that can take themselves wherever they have to go

Set in an English manor in 1890, Botany Manor is a video game that places you in the shoes of a botanist working on a herbarium of forgotten flora

Last year’s marine heatwaves saw an unprecedented decline in the growth of phytoplankton and algae, which many animals in the oceans depend on for food

Both a special diet that excludes “FODMAP” compounds and a low-carb high-fibre diet were effective

Cocaine and morphine hijacked neural responses in the brains of mice, which resulted in them consuming less food and water

The vertebrae of Vasuki indicus, a snake that lived 47 million years ago, suggest it could have been as long as 15 metres