New Scientist Space - Cosmology

A new information ecosystem is on the rise, featuring closer connections, cosy media and worker-owned websites, writes Annalee Newitz

Feedback watches with raised eyebrows as Anthropic's AI Claude is given the job of running the company vending machine, and goes a little off the rails

From reducing pain to relieving stress, the evidence for music's power is strong. Stefan Koelsch says we should use it – now

If ancient humans with brains a third the size of our own buried their dead, as some archaeologists are claiming, then our species may be less special than we thought

Keeping a baby's skin moisturised could significantly reduce their risk of eczema - but perhaps only for babies who aren't genetically at risk

Google DeepMind and historians created an AI tool called Aeneas that can predict the missing words in Latin inscriptions carved into stone walls and pottery sherds from the ancient Roman Empire.

Claims that a small-brained hominin called Homo naledi buried its dead raise intriguing questions about ancient minds and why we engage in this peculiar practice

A 247-million-year-old fossil reptile boasted an enormous crest on its back made from feather-like appendages, long before the appearance of feathered dinosaurs

With fast heating, sheets of gold can shoot past the theoretical maximum temperature a solid can have before it melts – raising questions about what the true limits are

By analysing videos of penalty kicks, a deep learning model was able to predict whether a shot would go to the goalkeeper’s left or right with 64 per cent accuracy

A 13-million-year-old leg bone from an enormous flightless bird carries crocodilian tooth marks, showing South America was once a predator-eat-predator world

Reducing air pollution is critical for improving public health, but it has brought big climate trade-offs

Two AI models have achieved gold medal standard for the first time in a prestigious competition for young mathematicians – and their developers claim these AIs could soon crack tough scientific problems

Leaf-toed geckos were thought to be locally extinct on Rabida Island, but the diminutive reptiles have re-emerged after a campaign to eliminate invasive rats

Losing a tooth as an adult is par for the course for many of us. The only option to replace them? Artificial substitutes. But an era of regrowing living teeth may now be almost upon us

The covid-19 pandemic changed our lives, and the world, in many ways - and now we are starting to understand its wider neurological effects

A 500-million-year-old sea creature called Mollisonia shared a similar brain structure to modern spiders, suggesting that arachnids first evolved in the sea

Shri rapax, known from a fossil found in Mongolia, had strong hands and teeth which may have helped it tackle much larger dinosaurs

People who follow a gluten-free diet in the hope of it calming their irritable bowel syndrome may actually be able to tolerate the common dietary protein

Farms commonly spread crushed limestone on fields to make the soil less acidic – and this practice can also help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere