New Scientist Space - Cosmology

Rather than being a recent cultural development, kissing may have been practised by other early humans like Neanderthals and our ape ancestors

A comprehensive UN report has found that cities and towns are home to 81 per cent of the world’s population, much more than previously thought

Ancient rock art was meant to be heard as well as seen and now acoustic archaeologists are bringing the sounds of prehistoric rituals to life

AlphaEvolve, an AI system created by Google DeepMind, is helping mathematicians do research at a scale that was previously impossible - even if it does occasionally "cheat" to find a solution

Facing its worst drought in decades, Iran is attempting to stimulate rain by spreading seeding agents in clouds, but the technique is likely to have modest benefits at best

A major settlement in Central Asia called Semiyarka dating back to 1600 BC had houses, a big central building and even an industrial zone for producing copper and bronze

A 12,000-year-old clay sculpture found in Israel depicts a goose on the back of a woman, and archaeologists suggest it may be a depiction of an animistic mythological scene

Neanderthals were thought to have structures inside their noses that helped them deal with the cold, but analysis of an exceptionally preserved specimen contradicts that

Some ants kill the queens of another species and take over their colonies, but we now know at least one species gets workers to do the dirty work for them through a kind of chemical subterfuge

The discovery that fat is a communicative organ with a role in everything from bone health to mood is forcing a rethink of how we view our bodies

Greenland’s melt is expected to slow the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, but research suggests a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet could in some cases prevent it from shutting down

Mice with the same genetic variant that contributes towards red hair in people were slower to recover from wounds than their black-haired counterparts

RNA from an exceptionally well preserved woolly mammoth gives us a window on gene activity in an animal that died nearly 40,000 years ago

A galaxy in a practically empty area of the universe seems to be impossibly forming stars, and new observations have only deepened the puzzle

From microscopes to geodes, New Scientist staff share their top Christmas present ideas in a gift guide unlike any you’ve seen before

Physics has a reputation for being dominated by men, especially a century ago, as quantum physics was just being invented – but there have been so many women who helped shaped the field since its inception

The images hammered into the sides of a goblet found in Palestine give us an idea of what people living more than 4000 years ago imagined the creation of the cosmos looked like

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

Sexual activity in young people is on the decline, but why? And what's more, should we be worried about what this means for society and the future of the human race?

Global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to hit another record high in 2025, but China’s carbon emissions appear to be reaching a peak