A news podcast for the instatiably curious by the world's most popular weekly science magazine. Everything from the latest science and technology news to the big-picture questions about life, the universe and what it means to be human.
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Episode 299 In a climate justice special episode of the podcast, the biggest issue of the century is up for discussion. Find out the true impact of climate change on our planet and who should be paying to fix the crisis. Rowan Hooper and Madeleine Cuff are joined by two climate experts - Friederike Otto and Joyce Kimutai from the World Weather Attribution project at Imperial College London. This episode is dedicated to answering three questions - starting with the issue of climate attribution. T...
Episode 298 Big news has just broken - astronomers claim they’ve detected the strongest evidence for alien life yet. The news has got the world’s media fired up with excitement - but is this really a “revolutionary moment”? Astronomers studying the atmosphere of a distant planet called K2-18b say they have detected a molecule called DMS that is only produced on Earth by living organisms, so it’s thought life might be producing it there too. Hear from the lead researcher on this project, Nikku Ma...
Episode 297 The “de-extinction company” Colossal Biosciences claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction. This is an ancient animal that roamed Earth 10,000 years ago and famously is depicted in Game of Thrones. After gene editing grey wolves, three pups have been born. But is it right to call them dire wolves, or are these just grey wolves in dire wolf clothing? It’s a turbulent time for US science, with massive and sweeping cuts being made to jobs and budgets. Departments like the ...
Episode 296 There’s a strange phenomenon in the plant world that we’ve known about for ages - but have only just figured out how to make use of it. Thanks to a process that sometimes happens during plant grafting, we can give plants skin transplants. This process produces ‘graft chimeras’, which have been seen as mere curiosities for many years. But now one company in the Netherlands is now planning to do something more with them, creating a whole new world of plant combinations that could produ...
Episode 295 The changes the body goes through during and after pregnancy have been examined in more detail than ever before. A landmark study is finally helping us to piece together some of the mysteries and myths surrounding this time – from how long it takes the body to go back to “normal” after birth to the extended periods of nutrient deficiency. This comes after a flurry of studies have given us the clearest picture yet of how the brain changes – and is dramatically remodelled – throughout ...
This episode explores potential past life on Mars via the Perseverance rover's findings, a groundbreaking discovery suggesting dark energy might be weakening, potentially reshaping our understanding of the universe's fate, and a team in China discovering a new process carried out by deep-sea bacteria that produce oxygen, which could be key to keeping deep sea creatures alive, with implications for life beyond Earth.
This episode of New Scientist Weekly delves into the Trump administration's cuts to science funding, impacting institutions like Johns Hopkins and NASA. It further explores the complexities of photosynthesis and how increasing carbon dioxide levels affect plant life and forest carbon storage. Finally, the hosts discuss new research revealing a memory illusion that warps our perception of time, challenging existing understandings of how memories are formed and stored.
Episode 292 Chimps are often seen as our hyper-aggressive ancestral cousins, while bonobos are famously more peaceful and caring. But studies of their sexual habits and practices show they are much more alike than we realised. Both apes appear to use sex and genital contact not just to reproduce, but also to smooth tensions in the group, deal with stressful situations and handle conflict at feeding time. Sophie Bergudo has recently finished a PhD on chimp behaviour and shares insights from her t...
Episode 291 Who got better sleep - hunter-gatherers or modern-day humans? We’re constantly being told we’re in the midst of an epidemic of poor sleep, but were our ancestors spending any longer in bed than we are? The answer may well surprise you. We weigh up the pros and cons of sleeping in industrialised societies and explore the real reasons why we’re always complaining about being tired. We often hear you can’t make up for a bad night’s sleep - once you’ve missed those precious hours in bed,...
Episode 290 Mice have been found saving the lives of their cagemates by performing a resuscitation technique similar to CPR. After opening the mouth of an unconscious mouse, the “attending mouse” yanks up its tongue to clear the airways and dislodges anything that’s stuck. This remarkable discovery shows that empathy and consolation behaviour is more widespread in mammals than we thought, and hints at a mouse theory of mind. Tiny, lab-grown bits of human brain are being combined to create someth...
Episode 289 Slices of mouse brains have been revived after being in deep freeze, hinting at the future possibility of reanimating humans who have been cryogenically preserved. While this is just a first step, researchers say the technique could one day be adapted to bring frozen human brains out of stasis. This may be good news for the more than 200 bodies currently in deep freeze in the US. But what kind of world will they wake up to if we do find a way? An asteroid named 2024 YR4 is threatenin...
Episode 288 President Trump has launched what’s being described as an all-out assault on science and medicine. Given America’s impact on global science, this affects the entire world. Web pages referencing climate change and global warming are being deleted, words like “transgender” are being banned from medical publications and USAID has been labelled evil. As access to fundamental scientific information is put at risk, we find out how anxiety is rising among US scientists - and what it means f...
Episode 287 Chinese AI company DeepSeek unexpectedly stormed onto the scene just a few days ago - a move that has shaken the big US AI companies. The new large language model is similar to ChatGPT, but was developed for a fraction of the cost. How have they achieved this? We dig into the key technological innovations behind DeepSeek. We also discuss the potential climate gains of a more efficient AI model, whether this is the beginning of an AI-fuelled arms race between China and the US and perh...
Episode 286 President Trump has signed executive orders pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement, and out of the World Health Organization. Although he claims that withdrawing from Paris will save the US $1trillion a year, the reality is much less clear. As the world’s second largest emitter and amid bans on renewable energy permits, just how catastrophic is this for global climate action? Leaving the WHO raises concerns too over the future of global health action. You probably know of ...
Episode 285 New archaeological evidence from Iron Age Britain has shaken up long-held beliefs about the role of women in ancient civilisations. By studying the genes of the Durotriges tribe, who lived in Dorset 2000 years ago, researchers have discovered women were the centrepiece of Celtic society - supporting evidence that they had high status across Europe. Rachel Pope, Reader in European Prehistory at the University of Liverpool, explores the “jaw-dropping” findings. We also hear from author...
Episode 284 Creating disease-resistant humans may before too long be a reality thanks to advancements in CRISPR gene editing. It’s now possible to make dozens - if not hundreds - of edits to different genes at once. As the field progresses rapidly, a controversial paper published in Nature explores just how powerful this technology could be in protecting against diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabetes. But how safe is gene-editing? The paper has been criticised amid safety and ethical concerns, a...
Episode 283 On this special episode of the podcast, we set you up for the year ahead. 2025 has been declared the year of humanoid robots. Futuristic robots that look like us are already being rolled out by companies like BMW and Tesla - and production is set to ramp up. One company is even planning to create an army of 10,000 warehouse robots called Digit. We’re going to see big changes in the food industry too, as the US is set to approve CRISPR gene editing for pigs. The idea is to create elit...
Episode 282 Looking back at some of the best stories New Scientist has published in 2024, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge that will serve you well over the holiday season. Rowan Hooper hosts a panel of New Scientist journalists, as they take it in turn to highlight their favourite moments from the year. Head of features Josh Howgego kicks off by looking at the race to find an amazing and strange form of hydrogen, known as ‘gold hydrogen’ - a game-changer for sustainability which ma...
Episode 281 In this special episode recorded live at the Science Museum in London, we celebrate some of the best, most awe-inspiring science stories of 2024. Round one kicks off with the panelist’s stories of the year, including the discovery that thousand-year-old preserved brains are much easier to find than we realised, that metallic nodules found on the sea floor could be acting as “geobatteries”, creating oxygen in the deep sea, plus a surprising finding involving Dyson Spheres that may hin...
Episode 280 Google claims it has pulled ahead in the race for quantum supremacy. Its new Willow chip has completed a task in 5 minutes that a classical computer would take 10 septillion years to complete. But the biggest breakthrough is how it excels in error correction. Find out what this means and why some scientists believe this new quantum computer proves the existence of the multiverse. Data from one of the world’s largest collections of brain scans is shedding new light on how to keep our ...
Episode 279 Antarctic sea ice is melting at an unprecedented rate. A collapse like the one we’re seeing was given just a 1 in 700 billion year chance of happening, based on climate models - we basically thought it was impossible. Melting ice in Antarctica will have global scale, knock-on ecological and climate consequences. To address the crisis, five hundred researchers met in Australia for an emergency summit for the future of the Antarctic. Sarah Thompson, one of the scientists at the confere...
Episode 278 Concerns about bird flu are rising as two cases in North America suggest the virus is adapting to humans. Evidence of human-to-human transmission is not yet conclusive but public health experts are worried. This year outbreaks have been found in both poultry and dairy cows in the US. Although it only causes mild symptoms in people at the moment, is there a chance it could evolve to become deadly? A last-minute deal has been struck at the UN climate summit COP29 – and people are not h...
Episode 277 Chimps are an intelligent species, capable of using tools and developing culture - so why have humans surpassed them to such a huge extent? How is it that we are busy exploring space while chimps remain stuck in the Stone Age? It’s long been thought it’s because their culture doesn’t evolve cumulatively, but that assumption has just been challenged. Hear from Cassandra Gunasekaram, the lead author of a paper that shows chimp culture develops in a more complex way than we realised. We...
Episode 276 Are the COP climate summits doing enough to help us avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change, or are they not fit for purpose, and designed to fail? COP29 is underway in petrostate Azerbaijan, headed by a CEO who was secretly filmed making oil and gas deals. Despite this, the team finds reason for optimism. They also hear from climate philosopher and activist Rupert Read, who runs the Climate Majority Project. He argues the COP process was designed to fail, that 1.5 degre...
Episode 275 The origins of the world’s oldest known writing system are being uncovered. Cuneiform was invented around 3200 BC in ancient Mesopotamia, but before it came a much simpler form of writing called proto-cuneiform. Researchers are now shedding light on how writing began along with the cultural factors that spurred on its invention. Just as the rather disappointing COP16 biodiversity conference comes to a close, another COP is nearly upon us. The famous climate conference is in its 29th ...
Episode 274 World leaders are in Colombia for the COP16 biodiversity summit. As delegates hash out a path forward, have we actually made any progress to protect global biodiversity since they last gathered? What would a Trump presidency mean for the climate? With the US election taking place on 5th November, two climate experts weigh in with their concerns. Leah Stokes works on climate policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Naomi Oreskes is a professor of earth and planetary s...
This episode of New Scientist Weekly covers the solving of an 800-year-old Viking cold case using DNA analysis, hopeful news regarding climate change and global warming fears, and a neuroscientist's study on how birth control pills impact the brain, revealing potential changes in brain volume. The episode explores the implications of these findings and emphasizes the importance of continued research and responsible interpretation of scientific data.
Episode 272 SpaceX has made history with its Starship rocket, the largest rocket ever built and one that’s hoped to eventually take us to Mars. In its fifth test, SpaceX successfully returned the rocket’s booster back to the launchpad and caught hold of it – an engineering feat of great finesse. But how close are we to putting crew on the rocket–- and when will it take humanity to the Red Planet? Leah-Nani Alconcel, spacecraft engineer at the University of Birmingham, joins the conversation. We ...
Episode 271 If we overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming, there is no going back. The hope has long been that if - and when - we blow past our climate goals, we can later reverse the damage. But there’s no guarantee we can bring temperatures back down, according to a paper published in Nature this week. The report suggests it would take decades to get back to normal - and some of the more devastating consequences will be irreversible. Hear from a variety of experts on the problem of climate ove...
Episode 270 There may be hope for the survival of coral reefs, a vital part of the global underwater ecosystem that is under massive threat from climate change. At 1.5 C degrees of warming we’re at risk of losing 70-90 per cent of coral - and more than 99 per cent is estimated to die off at 2 degrees. But new research suggests corals may be more adaptable and resilient than we thought. Hear from two experts on the matter, Chris Jury of the University of Hawaii and Terry Hughes, director of the C...
