New Scientist Space - Space Headlines

Two astronauts are about to set off for the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule. If all goes well, Starliner will join SpaceX’s Dragon as a US shuttle into orbit

A robot that moves around by balancing on a ball could prove a better assistant for wheelchair users than humanoid robots that walk on two legs

A quantum bit inspired by Schrödinger’s cat can resist making errors for an unprecedentedly long time, which makes it a candidate for building less error-prone quantum computers

Information contained within quantum objects gets scrambled when they interact. Physicists have now derived a speed limit for this process, challenging the idea that black holes are the fastest data scramblers

Head-bobbing seems to be a way for zebras to invite others to groom, graze or move together, suggesting sophisticated social and cognitive capabilities

A ribbon of electrodes could nestle in the gut to help diagnose gastrointestinal diseases linked to Parkinson’s

A surprise discovery has revealed that female stink bugs have a small indent on their hind legs that they use for cultivating fungi before spreading it on their eggs

The inactivation of one copy of the X chromosome in female mammals may start to fail as they get older, which may be why women have a higher risk of autoimmune conditions such as lupus

DNA analysis of remains found at medieval sites has identified closely related strains of leprosy-causing bacteria in the bones of humans and a red squirrel

Simulations of the crust of early Earth show that cycles of pressure caused by geysers or tidal forces could have generated cell-like structures and even very simple proteins

Migrating flies can carry pollen hundreds or thousands of kilometres, and this could help plants adapt to climate change

If all goes well, the Chang’e 6 probe will be the first ever to land on the far side of the moon to take samples and bring them back to Earth

Strange bursts of radio waves called FRBs have long been mysterious, and one of the most famous sources of these flashes may have an unexpected planet

Plants are often celebrated for the parts that are easy to see – flower, leaves, fruit – but scientists are uncovering the secrets of their more mysterious underground networks

The air and dust in climbing centres contain high levels of rubber particles from the soles of climbing shoes, some of which contain toxic additives

Climate change could be fueling bumblebee population loss by making hives too hot to handle

A male Sumatran orangutan chewed the leaves of a plant used in Indonesian traditional medicine and placed them on a wound on his face

Levels of protection measles provided by the MMR jab fall by a small amount every year, according to mathematical modelling

An analysis of the 2021 German federal elections has found that for every 200,000 times a politician's social media adverts were viewed, their vote share increased by 2.1 per cent - a potentially low-cost way of swinging elections

The skull of Shanidar Z was found in the Shanidar cave in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and has been painstakingly put back together