Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our weekly science news roundup. First, we have an update on humans going back to the moon. In the coming weeks the first launch window will open for NASA’s Artemis II mission. The planned lunar flyby will be…
Solar geoengineering could save the ice sheets – but stopping it could be catastrophic Martin Zwick/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Solar geoengineering could be even more costly than unabated global warming if it is cut off suddenly, leading to a “termination shock” of rapidly rebounding temperatures. As the rate of greenhouse gas emissions continues…
January 22, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm The bacterium behind syphilis has a far more ancient history than we thought Treponema pallidum, a microorganism that can cause a deadly sexually transmitted disease in humans, may have a far more ancient lineage than scientists once thought By Emma Gometz edited by Claire…
Mars has a surprisingly large influence on Earth’s climate NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems Compared with Earth, Mars is tiny, yet it seems to have an outsized effect on our planet’s climate cycles. Similar small planets could affect the climates of worlds beyond our solar system, which we must begin to take into account when evaluating…
January 21, 2026 4 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Sonic booms can protect Earth from dangerous space junk Scientists are using technology developed to study earthquakes to address an out-of-this-world risk By Lee Billings edited by Clara Moskowitz By mapping areas where seismometers in southern California detected sonic booms, researchers at Johns Hopkins…
You might expect a cognitive psychoanalyst, former NHS mental health lead and author of How to Be Your Own Therapist and Addicted to Anxiety, to offer fairly familiar advice to anyone struggling with anxiety. Yet Owen O’Kane’s view is refreshingly different. Rather than seeing anxiety as something to eliminate, he argues that it is something…
Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. It’s been more than 500 years since Leonardo da Vinci died. Yet, in those intervening centuries interest in the Italian polymath, who seemingly moved with ease between art, architecture and engineering, among other fields, has only grown. So has interest in…
Ralph Fiennes getting into his role in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Sony Pictures It’s hard to overstate just how influential 28 Days Later has been. The 2002 film – in which courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma to find the UK consumed by the “rage virus”, causing those infected to rip…
The universe is exploding. Or parts of it are. The night sky may seem calm, even serene, but that masks events of a catastrophic and nearly unimaginable scale. Across the galaxy and even the cosmos itself, immense outbursts of energy occur that could easily vaporize our planet. Happily, space is vast, and the terrible distance…
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 Even stranger things In common, it seems, with a substantial fraction of the human species, Feedback spent part of our holiday watching the final episodes of…
