New Scientist Space - Cosmology

One of the Milky Way’s smallest galactic neighbours seems to have a supermassive black hole at its centre, upending assumptions that it was dominated by dark matter

Photographer Tim Flach's new book Feline explores the mysterious and irresistible world of cats, from the domesticated to the wild, and why we love them

Ochre artefacts found in Crimea show signs of having been used for drawing, adding to evidence that Neanderthals used pigments in symbolic ways

In Ed Sayers's breathtaking documentary, a global community of film-makers capture the wildlife in their local areas. It's a bold departure from the glossy perspective of traditional nature documentaries, says Simon Ings

The internet is not what it once was, with so many apps and websites mere shadows of themselves. Thankfully, the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee, has a fix that we should adopt

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

Enshittification is a term coined by Cory Doctorow in 2022. In his new book, Doctorow lays out how tech companies have made our lives progressively worse, finds Matthew Sparkes

The US government's decision to stop supporting a telescope facility that would have given us unprecedented insight into the early universe is calamitous, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Feedback comes across a YouTuber's efforts to build a large language model in Minecraft and is impressed at the scale of it – even if it doesn't quite live up to its promise to blow your mind "in spectacular fashion"

COP's negotiations this month will focus on money for climate change adaptation. While more money is essential, even a big increase won't be enough on its own and we need to face up to this, warns Susannah Fisher

Can sea slugs form abstract thoughts? Do we dare to see any "purpose" in evolution? Is the subjective just a complicated form of the objective? Nikolay Kukushkin's One Hand Clapping is a bold voyage around the mysteries of the human mind, finds Thomas Lewton

The man who invented the web is aware of the many issues it faces, from problematic social media use to the rise of unfettered AI. He also has a plan to remedy the situation

Computers built with analogue circuits promise huge speed and efficiency gains over ordinary computers, but normally at the cost of accuracy. Now, an analogue computer designed to carry out calculations that are key to AI training could fix that

During sleep, your brain cleans itself by flushing through cerebrospinal fluid to prevent damage to brain cells. If you're lacking in sleep, this happens when you are awake – and seems to cause momentary lapses in attention

During sleep, your brain cleans itself by flushing through cerebrospinal fluid to prevent damage to brain cells. If you're lacking in sleep, this happens when you are awake – and seems to cause momentary lapses in attention

Combining a quantum-inspired algorithm and quantum information processing technologies could enable researchers to measure masses of cosmic objects that bend light almost imperceptibly

The Trump administration has laid off government workers integral to major public health surveys, meaning the country will lack crucial information on births, deaths and illnesses nationwide

Plague, leprosy, smallpox and other diseases didn't jump from animals to humans when we thought. Ancient DNA is revealing where they come from and how they changed history

The monster hurricane pummelling Jamaica is powered by abnormal sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean, which were made at least 500 times more likely by global warming

Among over-50s, women seem to require less exercise than men to get the same reduction in heart disease risk, suggesting health guidelines need to be updated