New Scientist Space - Space Headlines

From infections to brain injuries, the female body is more resilient than the male. It is time to reassess the "weaker" sex, says Cat Bohannon

In a social world, being alone (by choice or not) is complex. Solitude: The science and power of being alone by Netta Weinstein, Heather Hansen and Thuy-vy T. Nguyen brings us up to date

New proposals for addictions seem to keep cropping up, but the reality is we don't truly understand the mechanisms behind our cravings in the first place

From the vastness of the universe to the infinitesimal particles that comprise it, extremes of scale defy comprehension – and present a problem for physicists seeking a unified theory of everything

People with higher genetic risk for depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are more likely to have unusual activity levels of "fossil viruses" in their genomes

Subatomic particles can appear to instantly influence one another, no matter how far apart they are. These days, that isn't a source of mystery – it's a fact of the universe and a resource for new technologies

Scientists have long thought the source of the sun's magnetic field sat deep within the star, but it may exist in a far more convenient spot for us to observe it

The highly unstable radioactive element promethium is hard to study in the lab, but chemists have now coaxed it into forming a compound in water so they can observe its bonding behaviour

The largest study yet looking at whether conditions such as depression and anxiety could spread between teenagers finds that one person in a class being diagnosed is linked with a higher risk for their classmates

Pelting metals under high temperatures has revealed that some get even stronger when heated, which could help improve 3D printing and certain industrial processes

Cement production is a huge source of carbon emissions with no green alternative, but a new process that uses waste from demolished buildings could dramatically reduce its climate impact

Researchers have come to see cancers as akin to organisms, existing in complex ecosystems and subject to evolutionary pressures. Now they are targeting cancer’s ability to adapt

The big puma fungus hasn't been seen since it was discovered in 1982 in Chile’s Nahuelbuta mountains – now an expedition has finally rediscovered these tiny, elusive mushrooms

To avoid the worst effects of climate change, the world must balance carbon emissions with carbon sinks by 2050. But even if we hit the target, a lot depends on how much we emit in the meantime

An excavation on Timor reveals humans first settled on the island 44,000 years ago, long after the earliest occupation of Australia – suggesting migration to the latter took another route

Cattle seem to be more willing to lick and accept food from women, and are more likely to act aggressively around men

Cows seem to be more willing to lick and accept food from women, and are more likely to act aggressively around men

The Linac Coherent Light Source in California fired an X-ray pulse that lasted only a few hundred billionths of a billionth of a second but carried nearly a terawatt of power

Early evidence suggests that a bird flu virus called H5N1 may be infecting dairy cows through contaminated milking equipment – but poor surveillance has made it nearly impossible to rule out other possibilities

Fractals are common in nature because of the surprisingly simple way they are made. Mathematically, they also help us make sense of complexity and chaos – and maybe even quantum weirdness