New Scientist

An experiment has produced nanoflares similar to those seen on the sun, and shown that they can help explain why the outer layers of the solar atmosphere are so hot

We now have a clearer picture of what happened in the decades following the asteroid impact that led to the extinction of almost all dinosaurs

Shallow-water coral reefs are at high risk of disappearing by 2075, the IUCN has warned at a UN biodiversity conference. The loss would decimate fisheries and speed up coastal erosion

The benefits of being creative span generationsWestend61 GmbH / Alamy Adults are often thought to be less creative than children, as we swap painting for presentations and sandpits for spreadsheets. But in a new study, children actually performed worse on creativity tests than adults – yet made up for it in confidence. “We found that adults are actually more creative thinkers,” says Mathias Benedek at the University of Graz in Austria. “But children enjoy creativity more and are much less

Critical vulnerabilities were detected in a widely used computer language, prompting cybersecurity authorities to advise affected websites and apps go offline until a fix became availableROB ENGELAAR/EPA/Shutterstock Cybersecurity experts around the globe are racing to update systems and prevent the most disruptive AI-enabled hack yet discovered. A flaw uncovered in widely-used code has made 70 per cent of websites worldwide vulnerable to data theft and defacement. Government websites in F

AI lets us remake software as we likeDmytro Olegovich Zakharchuk / Alamy Stock Photo I am waging a silent rebellion against Amazon. The internet giant owns Goodreads, the leading service for tracking and cataloguing books, but is generally considered to be a poor steward of the platform, which is built on ageing technology. Frustrated with the user experience, I have used AI to vibe code my own Goodreads app, relegating the official one to mere plumbing in my private fiefdom. Take that, Amazo

The glymphatic system flushes toxins out of the brain, but this seems to be disrupted in Alzheimer's disease, and cholesterol may be involved

The familiar scent of orange can now be transmitted through the internetCounter/Getty Images Imagine if, in addition to sharing photos of those muffins you just baked, you could share their delicious aroma, too. That’s the promise of an AI-assisted device that can transmit smells over the internet. So far, it works on only a small number of scents, including orange, beer and cake, but its creators hope the system will ultimately recreate more smells. The scent of a pine forest or the aroma of

As sea levels rise in the eastern Pacific, they are falling around Australia and the Coral Triangle, leaving some mangroves and corals high and dry

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Tom Gauld

Uros Arsic/AFP via Getty Images Thermometers, at least traditionally, don’t remember. Mercury expands in response to heat energy, and the red line rises. The temperature falls, the mercury contracts, the line descends. Yesterday’s measurement has no bearing on today’s. But even if thermometers can’t measure it, rising temperatures leave a lasting mark. Forests die, ice sheets melt and species go extinct. Now that the world is within touching distance of 1.5°C of warming, we are getting hin

Which animal has the most sensory access to reality? Given the worldwide impact of carbon dioxide, why is it still used to put the fizz in water and soft drinks?

This question was posed as part of New Scientist’s Last Word series, in which readers give scientific answers to each other’s questions. Here’s what our readers had to say

Northern bottlenose whales are more likely to stick together when individuals are poorly or emaciated

A dinosaur that is new to science has features of both subfamilies of the tyrannosaur group, complicating our understanding of how they evolved

Useful quantum computers will have to use many “logical qubits” as their computational building blocks, and researchers just broke the record for how reliable they can be

El Niño has already raised sea levels in part of the eastern Pacific by 40 centimetres and as it continues to strengthen, there could be coastal flooding from Alaska to Chile

The Drake equation provides a way to guess how many aliens we might be able to communicate with, but it’s also a prime example of the importance of scientific guessing, says columnist Leah Crane

Excavations in the Côa valley in Portugal, the world’s largest site of Palaeolithic open-air rock art, are yielding clues about how engravings of animals were seen by prehistoric hunter-gatherers