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This week's magazine

13 January 2024

Issue 3473

New Scientist issue 3473 cover
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Editor's picks

Alamy Live News. 2WB3HB1 A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket launches at 2:18 AM on its maiden flight from Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida on Monday, January 8, 2024. The primary payload onboard the new rocket is the Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander, carrying multiple instruments for NASA to the moon. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI Credit: UPI/Alamy Live News This is an Alamy Live News image and may not be part of your current Alamy deal . If you are unsure, please contact our sales team to check.

Space

2024 is set to be the year of the moon, but let's proceed with care

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Olive oil is a key component of the Mediterranean diet

Health

We’re finally working out why the Mediterranean diet is so good for us

Features
Meet Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the moon

Space

Meet Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the moon

Features
2ENH3G9 The latest born West African manatee, left, meets visitors for the first time at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai city, south China's Guangdong province, 19 August 2019. The latest-born West African manatee at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, who is the first born female manatee in China, meet visitors for the first time two months after her birth in Zhuhai city, south China's Guangdong province, 19 August 2019. During the meeting, the manatee chooses her name as Feifei, and interact with present visitors. (Photo by Chen Jimin - Imaginechina/Sipa USA)

Life

Are there really freshwater manatees thriving deep within West Africa?

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Alamy Live News. 2WB3HB1 A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket launches at 2:18 AM on its maiden flight from Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida on Monday, January 8, 2024. The primary payload onboard the new rocket is the Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander, carrying multiple instruments for NASA to the moon. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI Credit: UPI/Alamy Live News This is an Alamy Live News image and may not be part of your current Alamy deal . If you are unsure, please contact our sales team to check.

Space

2024 is set to be the year of the moon, but let's proceed with care

With a spate of missions to the lunar surface scheduled for this year, we must ensure lessons from the way humanity has impacted Earth aren’t forgotten

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Chemistry

Strange material made of soap could be used for photosynthesis

The first ever soap films with chemically distinct sides are a step towards cheap soap-based devices that could create useful chemicals through artificial photosynthesis

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Technology

AI sheds light on the ancient origins of England's place names

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Health

Severe covid-19 infections linked to increased risk of schizophrenia

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Life

1.75-billion-year-old fossils help explain how photosynthesis evolved

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Earth

Vast submerged area near Australia may once have hosted 500,000 people

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Technology

Most large fishing boats go untracked as ‘dark vessels’

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Life

Tiny T. rex fossils may be distinct species – but not everyone agrees

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Technology

Should nations try to ban bitcoin because of its environmental impact?

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Physics

First working graphene semiconductor could lead to faster computers

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Technology

Humanoid robot acts out prompts like it's playing charades

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Chemistry

Notoriously complex material called 'plumber's nightmare' created

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Technology

There’s a 5% chance of AI causing humans to go extinct, say scientists

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Space

A renegade moon may have flipped Venus’s spin

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Space

Neptune isn't as blue as we thought it was

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Mind

Psychedelic drug helps treat PTSD and traumatic brain injuries

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Environment

Animal bones ground into an edible paste could help reduce food waste

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Environment

How Bolivia’s gold rush is poisoning Indigenous communities

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Space

‘Islands’ poking out of black holes may solve the information paradox

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Space

The Peregrine lunar lander may not make it to the moon

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Environment

2023 was officially the hottest year on record

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Life

Why huge ape Gigantopithecus went extinct up to 295,000 years ago

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Analysis

Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA?s James Webb Space Telescope shows this to great effect. Cooler cosmic dust glows at the longer mid-infrared wavelengths, displaying the structure of WR 124?s nebula. The nebula is made of material cast off from the aging star in random ejections, and from dust produced in the ensuing turbulence. This brilliant stage of mass loss precedes the star?s eventual supernova, when nuclear fusion in its core stops and the pressure of gravity causes it to collapse in on itself, and then explode. As MIRI demonstrates here, Webb will help astronomers to explore questions that were previously only left to theory about how much dust stars like this create before exploding in a supernova, and how much of that dust is large enough to survive the blast and go on to serve as building blocks of future stars and planets.

Space

How galactic mysteries near and far are poised to shake up cosmology

Last year saw a host of exciting galaxy-related discoveries, led by a study about a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud. What a time to be an astrophysicist, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Comment

Physics

Why we should all be concerned about the shortage of science teachers

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Aperture

See these exquisite images of starling murmurations around Europe

Life

See these exquisite images of starling murmurations around Europe

Søren Solkær's new collection of photographs shows starlings swooping as one in dramatic, cloud-like flocks

Regulars

Features

Meet Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the moon

Space

Meet Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the moon

Christina Koch, who will become the first woman to go to the moon with the Artemis II mission, on what space smells like, why it is difficult to return to Earth and how astronauts play human bowling

Features

Health

We’re finally working out why the Mediterranean diet is so good for us

Features

Life

Are there really freshwater manatees thriving deep within West Africa?

Features

Culture

BF3CDY girl and tree in front of solar panel

Comment

Not the End of the World review: Crunching the data on saving Earth

Hannah Ritchie's smart new book is sure to whip up major controversy by arguing that the data shows we can win the battle to save the planet. But are its solutions credible?

Culture

Comment

Our Moon review: Humanity's history with our closest satellite

Culture

Comment

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ recommends: Naomi Alderman's The Future and Doctor Who

Culture

Comment

Eight sci-fi video games to look forward to in 2024

Culture

More

CB8PYJ Old photographs.

Mathematics

Are we all related to Henry VIII's Master of the Mint?

After discovering that a Ralph Rowlett was in charge of the Royal Mint in 1540, Peter Rowlett runs the genealogy calculations to find out if he could be related

Regulars

BrainTwister #2: Piles of money

Regulars

Tom Gauld on the early stages of a project

Regulars

Twisteddoodles on a site where people can pay to watch ... research

Regulars

Regulars

Can you make batteries from tiny black holes? Maybe, say scientists

Can you make batteries from tiny black holes? Maybe, say scientists

Feedback continues investigating both the whereabouts and the usefulness of black holes, in the process uncovering new research suggesting the cosmic phenomena could be used as rechargeable batteries

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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