“As with any mathematical concept, this idea is open to exploration” Peter Rowlett When she was young, Mary Everest Boole found some cards with evenly spaced holes around the edges. She laced a thread from each hole to the one opposite, covering the card with lines that crossed in the middle. When she tried connecting…
Forest (Nick Offerman) is the CEO of quantum computing firm Amaya Album/Alamy DevsAlex GarlandFX Hulu, Disney+ March 2020 was an inauspicious time, I think we can agree. This may be why Devs, an eight-part sci-fi series by Alex Garland that debuted as the world went into lockdown, didn’t attract as large an audience as it could…
Shrimp harvesting at a farm in south-east Vietnam Quang Ngoc Nguyen/Alamy On Natural CapitalPartha Dasgupta (Witness Books (UK, out now); Mariner Books (US, 20 January 2026)) How much would things cost if the environmental harm caused by producing them were taken into account? What impact would that have on a country’s economy? Can we put…
Strawberry squid, colour lithograph Smithsonian Libraries, Washington, DC Salt water covers seven-tenths of Earth’s surface and is where life began. So it is no surprise that our oceans are home to a wide diversity of creatures of all shapes, colours and evolutionary strategies. ‘Pilchard (Argentina carolina)’, hand-coloured engraving from Mark Catesby National Agricultural Library, Beltsville,…
Pandemics. Conflicts. Crashing markets. Collapsing governments. A cursory glance at the headlines over recent years is enough to give the sense that the world is an unstable and uncertain place. But “volatility” isn’t just something hedge fund managers care about. It is deeply important to your brain too. In my new book, A Trick of…
Now you see me… en.photo/Alamy The desire to disappear has been strong throughout history. It didn’t go well for the protagonist in H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, but that is because his invisibility was permanent. What was needed – and what was longed for – was a means of disappearing temporarily, as popularised by…
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 Rings of power Feedback is often on the lookout for a nice gift for Mrs Feedback, a task made significantly trickier by her pesky habit of pre-ordering…
In The End of the World As We Know It, other writers are telling stories set in the post-apocalyptic world of Stephen King’s The Stand Ulf Andersen/Getty Images One of my most anticipated books of the year is out this month: a collection of short stories set in the post-apocalyptic devastation of Stephen King’s The…
Lightning flashes during a monsoon storm in the US Edward Mitchell/World Meteorological Organization (WMO) A lightning “mega-flash” over the US Great Plains region stretching 829 kilometres, or around 515 miles, has been identified as the longest on record. The flash spanned five states, ranging from eastern Texas to Missouri. Such mega-flashes – extremely long-lasting or…
During President Trump’s first term in office, he signed Space Policy Directive 1, signaling the administration’s desire to bring American astronauts back to the moon. This directive, and similar ones, later became Project Artemis, the lunar campaign with broader ambition to get the U.S. on Mars. But will we get to the moon, not to…
