Making high-performance proteins for medicines or consumer products can take trial after trial of tweaks, experiments and fine-tuning. A new machine learning framework squeezes all that into a single round of testing. The technique, called MULTI-evolve, predicts how proteins will behave when several of their amino acids are swapped for others. MULTI-evolve blends laboratory experiments…
February 19, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm ‘Mind-blowing’ baby chick study challenges a theory of how humans evolved language Newborn chicks connect sounds with shapes just like humans, suggesting deep evolutionary roots of the “bouba-kiki” effect By Cody Cottier edited by Allison Parshall HUIZENG HU/Getty Images (photography); Jeffery DelViscio (illustrations) Why…
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 Astreenomers Feedback is shocked – shocked – to learn that a grove of trees in northern Italy did not, in fact, predict a solar eclipse. Now,…
About 150 million years ago, in a coastal lagoon in what is now southern Germany, the oldest known bird gobbled up food with a beak built for efficient eating. It’s finely tuned mouth anatomy, revealed in a newly analyzed fossil, may have helped it generate the energy required to fly, researchers report February 2 in…
February 18, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm FDA agrees to review Moderna mRNA flu vaccine in dramatic reversal After initially rejecting Moderna’s application for review, the FDA will now consider the company’s mRNA flu shot By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner Jackyenjoyphotography/Getty Images The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will…
An image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* in polarised light, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope EHT Collaboration At the centre of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* – but one group of researchers is suggesting it may not be a black hole at all. The team says that…
February 19, 2026 4 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Alzheimer’s blood tests predict what age people will be when the disease may cause symptoms, study finds Tests that could reveal when Alzheimer’s disease will emerge, while promising, are not ready for use in otherwise healthy people, scientists say By Tanya Lewis edited by…
Symbiotic bacteria live inside specialised organs called bacteriomes within insects. This image shows a cross-section of the planthopper Callodictya krueperi, with fluorescent probes labelling three microbes: Vidania (red), Sodalis (yellow) and Sulcia (green) Courtesy Anna Michalik et al Symbiotic bacteria living inside insect cells have the smallest genomes known for any organism. The findings further muddy the distinction between cellular organelles…
February 18, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm EPA faces lawsuit over scrapping the ‘endangerment finding,’ a pillar of climate regulation Medical and environmental groups are challenging the EPA’s decision to break with the long-standing scientific evidence that climate change endangers human health By Dan Vergano edited by Claire Cameron The Environmental…
BBC/Curious Films/Rory Langdon The chances are that you think about artificial intelligence far more today than you did five years ago. Since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, we have become accustomed to interacting with AIs in most spheres of life, from chatbots and smart home tech to banking and healthcare. But such rapid change…
