A map showing anomalies in the moon’s gravitational field, based on data from NASA’s GRAIL mission NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT/GSFC Earth’s gravitational pull on the moon has revealed that our satellite’s interior is warmer on its near side, the one facing our planet, suggesting its insides are uneven. We have known that the moon’s near side looks different…
In 1977, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) imposed a ban on women of childbearing age being included in early drug trials – even if they used contraception or had vasectomised partners. This was a reaction to harms caused by drugs like thalidomide, which can lead to birth defects. Even before the ban (which…
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 Hot! Hot! Hot! Saturday 17 May will see the final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which will be the most over-the-top evening of television since, well,…
Simone Rotella The UK government’s proposed AI-powered crime prediction tool, designed to flag individuals deemed “high risk” for future violence based on personal data like mental health history and addiction, marks a provocative new frontier. Elsewhere, Argentina’s new Artifical Intelligence Unit for Security intends to use machine learning for crime prediction and real-time surveillance. In…
“Most people can recognise the Plough…” VCG/VCG via Getty Images Some of my earliest stargazing memories involve the same seven stars. Whether you call it the Plough or the Big Dipper – or even the saucepan, the panhandle or the wagon – the stars that form this asterism are ones I think many people learn…
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. More than 1,000 cases of measles have been confirmed in the U.S. since late January, including a cluster in West Texas that has caused one of the worst outbreaks in recent memory. These outbreaks are occurring even though measles was technically eliminated in the U.S….
Michael Shannon, George MacKay and Tilda Swinton in The End Neon The EndJoshua Oppenheimer (Streaming on MUBI) Life on the planet’s surface has become nigh-on unbearable, but with money and resources enough, the finest feelings and highest aspirations of our culture can be perpetuated underground, albeit only for a chosen few. In Joshua Oppenheimer’s unearthly drama The End,…
Wiggling Sperm Power a New Male Fertility Test A physics-based sperm-screening technique could offer a more accurate at-home test for people trying to conceive By Joanna Thompson edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Sperm have to wiggle vigorously to reach an egg, and that motion is key to a clever new fertility test. The technique, tested…
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Alamy In 1998, astronomers made a startling announcement. Space-time, the unified phenomenon that comprises our universe and that was previously understood to be expanding, was actually not just growing, but growing faster and faster as time went on. In other words, its expansion was accelerating. This was the birth of the cosmic…
While free diving to photograph kelp forests along the California coastline, I’ve viscerally felt the consequences of finiteness as a living being—the fleeting nature of a single breath, the limits of my own lungs. Kelp forests, too, have a threshold. These towering underwater jungles, which unfurl in golden ribbons with the pull of the tides,…
