New Scientist Space - Cosmology
Astronauts could drink their own urine with water-recycling spacesuit
When astronauts go on a spacewalk, their urine is collected by what is essentially a large diaper before being thrown away, and they have less than a litre of drinking water available - but a new kind of spacesuit could solve both issues
Categories: Astronomy
You can turn any random sequence of events into a clock
A set of mathematical equations can help turn apparently random observations into a clock – and then measure its accuracy
Categories: Astronomy
Laser helps turn an electron into a coil of mass and charge
Researchers have reshaped single electrons into spiralling matter waves with distinct handedness that could be used to study and control materials
Categories: Astronomy
Melting sea ice is hindering, not helping, Canadian Arctic shipping
Thick sea ice is flowing into the Northwest Passage, complicating predictions that melting ice due to climate change will open a shorter route between oceans
Categories: Astronomy
Woolly mammoth DNA exceptionally preserved in freeze-dried 'jerky'
A complete genome has been extracted from a 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth, which might bring us closer to resurrecting the species
Categories: Astronomy
Menstrual pads that turn blood solid could reduce the risk of leaks
Adding a polymer-alcohol mixture to menstrual pads causes blood to solidify, rather than being absorbed, which could ward off leaks
Categories: Astronomy
People with Alzheimer's disease benefit from spending time with horses
Horse therapy helps people with Alzheimer's disease socialise and improves their mood to a greater extent than music therapy, which is more established for supporting people with dementia
Categories: Astronomy
Speed of decision-making reflects our biases
Within a group of decision-makers, the longer it takes someone to make a choice, the less likely they are to be influenced by their inherent biases according to a mathematical model
Categories: Astronomy
Lions' record-breaking swim across channel captured by drone camera
Two lions, one missing a leg, made a 1.5-kilometre swim through crocodile-infested waters in Uganda, probably in order to mate with females
Categories: Astronomy
Why you shouldn't believe claims you can grow a rose in a potato
Social media assures us that we can grow a rose cutting in a raw potato. But you're better off sticking with tried and tested methods of rose propagation, says James Wong
Categories: Astronomy
These stunning images made the shortlist for space photo competition
See some of the dazzling pictures that were shortlisted for the annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition
Categories: Astronomy
Why many inventions, from flying cars to smart robots, fail to launch
Some technologies never quite make it. But a new book, The Long History of the Future, shows how certain problems are just bigger and thornier than we thought
Categories: Astronomy
What would Earth look like in 25 years? I asked the experts
Exhausted by today's political and environmental instability, Annalee Newitz investigated what a future Earth might look like. Get ready for green mining, soft cities and robo-taxis
Categories: Astronomy
'Unprecedented and inconceivable': pylon falls over after nuts removed
Feedback wonders if a little engineering knowhow might have come in handy in Glorit, New Zealand, where procedures were seemingly ignored during maintenance of an electrical power pylon
Categories: Astronomy
Why taking our grief out into nature can help us heal
When we lose a loved one, it has a profound effect on our bodies. Taking our grief outside offers us better healing in the long term than shutting it away, says Ruth Allen
Categories: Astronomy
Why do teenagers take such risks? A new book has some answers
An eye-opening new book by psychologist Lucy Foulkes lifts the lid on the surprisingly rational strategies behind the risky behaviours of adolescence, finds Catherine de Lange
Categories: Astronomy
Governments bans on quantum computer exports have no basis in science
Several nations around the world have placed arbitrary limits on the export of quantum computers, despite today's devices having little practical use. The restrictions are counterproductive and at odds with the scientific method
Categories: Astronomy
How a simple physics experiment could reveal the “dark dimension”
Could the universe's missing matter be hiding in a "dark" extra dimension? We now have simple ways to test this outlandish idea - and the existence of extra dimensions more generally
Categories: Astronomy
A long-standing mystery about breastfeeding may have been solved
Researchers have discovered a hormone in mice that prevents bone loss during lactation and could one day be used to treat osteoporosis
Categories: Astronomy
The plague may have wiped out most northern Europeans 5000 years ago
DNA evidence from tombs in Sweden and Denmark suggests major plague outbreaks were responsible for the Neolithic decline in northern Europe
Categories: Astronomy