Explore the latest scientific discoveries, science news, breakthroughs and developments from around the world.
A ship that sank in the Early Bronze Age was probably carrying jars of olive oil and may have been on its way to the ancient city of Troy when it sank
Some of the first people in North America lived through extreme climate change at the peak of the last ice age, a new study suggests. Researchers studied ancient pollen locked in rocks at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, which houses an archaeological site thought to contain the oldest human footprints in the Americas. The researchers previously dated those footprints to around 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, though their age is the subject of some scientific debate because they are significantly older than other Indigenous sites in the Americas.The new findings, published Wednesday (Oct. 14) in the journal Science Advances, suggest that humans kept using White Sands after temperatures w...
Is self-replicating AI really just months away?janiecbros/Getty Images Much of the AI industry is built on stories, from the idea that AI could kill us all to the goal that it might one day become superintelligent. This often leads to problems, because when people have a story in their head, they donāt always look at the facts on the ground to check that they actually match the fiction. That has happened this week, with widely reported claims from Anthropic that we are mere āmonths awayā from self-replicating AIs taking over smart devices. Thatās a great headline, and itās hard to resist clicking, but it almost certainly isnāt true. Read more AI or āsuper intelligenceā? Trump isnāt the only ...
Icebergs near GreenlandCavan Images/Alamy A collapse in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would be catastrophic, bringing āice ageā winters to Europe, raising sea levels in North America and disrupting vital monsoons in Africa and Asia. But there is a sliver of good news: a climate-driven collapse of the AMOC might not be permanent. The AMOC could weaken significantly under rising global temperatures over the coming decades, but it could recover its strength just as quickly if global cooling occurs. āThereās a very linear relationship between the global mean temperature and the AMOC response,ā says Chuncheng Guo at the Danish Meteorological Institute. āWhen people talk a...
The proposed change to how the National Institutes of Health handles grant applications has been criticized by scientists as reducing transparency
Microplastics interact with water to create highly reactive molecules, a new study finds
As AI churns out mathematical proofs, a DeepMind study raises a bigger question: What do we lose when we focus only on the answers?
From ice groaning to a very noisy troop of monkeys, Wilderness Songs by Justin Anderson shows some of the best nature stories are told through soundscapes as well as words ā with added QR codes, finds Dhruti Shah
When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift somehow delivers both a determined call for more wildernesses globally ā and a great novel. Sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson is thrilled she gave it another chance
Why do humans enjoy black-and-white photos or videos, but have less tolerance for images that have only two other colours? If two chromosomes are better than one, why not three?
Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images El NiƱo brings weather of opposite extremes ā floods, droughts, cyclones, wildfires ā to opposite sides of the planet. But we often forget that most of this extreme weather is highly predictable.For example, all eight strong El NiƱos in the past 70 years have caused drought in Indonesia. All major models predict the current record El NiƱo will lead to a dry autumn and winter there. So itās little surprise that Indonesia is struggling with worsening drought and wildfires. Similarly predictable effects will be seen worldwide over the next year. Because of this predictability, some experts argue that there are no ānaturalā disasters. With enough pr...
Dr Kandi Ejiofor (right) and epidemiologist Tim Spector unpack the risks in modern diets on the Mind and Body StageAlistair Veryard The hall hummed with joyous curiosity at this yearās New Scientist Live at Excel London, which ran from 10 to 12 October and attracted thousands of visitors of all ages. With topics including the search for extraterrestrial life, what AI is teaching us about consciousness and the maths behind PokĆ©mon, there was a delightful range to explore. Highlights included physicist Jim Al-Khalili diving into the deepest mysteries of time and psychologist Kimberley Wilson on how to build lifelong brain health. Other packed talks ranged from how we evolved, from anthropologi...