November 27, 2025 3 min read The Incredible, Unlikely Story of How Cats Became Our Pets Two new studies dig into the long, curving path that cats took toward domestication By Meghan Bartels edited by Claire Cameron Barisic Zaklina/Getty Images Cats have been on quite a journey from wild animal to undisputed ruler of millions…
Domestic cats are descended from North African wildcats Mariia Boiko/Alamy Genetic evidence has revealed that domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe and East Asia in the past 2000 years, more recently than previously thought. Domestic cats (Felis catus) are descended from the African wildcat (Felis lybica lybica) and today they are…
“As we enter the second half of the 2020s, it is an incredibly exciting time for dark matter research…” SAKKMESTERKE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Now is a surreal time to be a dark matter researcher. Even as research funding is being cut by governments around the world, dark matter remains one of the biggest and most exciting…
Verreaux’s alpine tree frog gets a boosted jump when infected with a common fungus Robert Valentic/naturepl.com Chytrid fungus is a deadly pathogen plaguing amphibians in an ongoing global pandemic, with the potential to kill off entire populations. But in one threatened Australian frog species, the infection has an unusual side effect: huge hops. Verreaux’s alpine…
Bamboo is not just for eating Magouki/Shutterstock Giant pandas have been seen using twigs or pieces of bamboo to scratch themselves. Other than an old anecdotal report about giant pandas rubbing dirt into their fur, this is the first recorded instance of tool use among these animals, says Bin Yang at the Shaanxi Institute of…
When my late lab partner Xu Liu and I first illuminated the brain cells that stored a particular memory, it felt like watching a thought flicker back to life. We stimulated a constellation of neurons inside a mouse’s hippocampus and hypothesised that these very neurons were the physical basis of memory, or the engram. We…
Feedback is New Scientist’s popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com Too tight to mention Feedback is one of many holidaymakers to have run afoul of French swimwear rules. For those unaware, men using a public swimming pool…
Holiday reading: our pick of the best popular science books of the year hadynyah/Getty Images The challenge here is clearly highlighted on the book’s cover, where “positive” is coloured a bright shiny yellow. After all, we know how tipping points work – a small change makes a big, sometimes defining, change to a system or…
November 26, 2025 1 min read Magnitude 4.0 Earthquake Rattles Bay Area, with Aftershocks Likely to Follow A minor earthquake struck California in the early hours of the morning on November 26 By Meghan Bartels edited by Claire Cameron An earthquake of magnitude 4.0 rattled the Bay Area shortly after 6 A.M. local time on…
Swimmers in January at Beckenham Place Park lake in London AMcCulloch / Alamy It’s 8am and I’m standing at the edge of my local lake at Beckenham Place Park in London, the early morning sun just beginning to peek over the trees. A layer of mist is rising from the cold water and all is…
