TPI plot and contour map indicating the probable position of the palaeolake demarcated by the blue boundary line. Credit: Journal of Quaternary Science (2024). DOI: 10.1002/jqs.3643 Lesotho is a small, land-locked, mountainous country located in the middle of South Africa. Its Eastern Lesotho Highlands are often referred to as the region’s “water tower” because they … Read more
Fueled by a crushing heat wave, the so-called Park Fire — the most intense wildfire to hit the state this summer — has rapidly devoured nearly 240,000 acres (97,000 hectares). A huge, fast-moving and rapidly growing wildfire in northern California has forced more than 4,000 people to evacuate as firefighters battle gusty winds and perilously … Read more
Long and winding road: The Juice space probe taking the long way to Jupiter and its moons. A spacecraft launched last year will slingshot back around Earth and the moon next month in a high-stakes, world-first maneuver as it pinballs its way through the solar system to Jupiter. The European Space Agency’s Juice probe blasted … Read more
In the walk-up to the 55th anniversary of the history-making Apollo 11 mission on July 20, Hollywood is hoping that a new movie about NASA staging a fake version of the moon landing will take off at the box office. In Fly Me to the Moon, launching in theaters July 12, a Nixon White House … Read more
NASA’s WB-57 research jets will be used to study the eclipse Amir Caspi Across North America, solar scientists will be studying April’s total solar eclipse to view the strangest part of the sun: the corona. Seen fleetingly as a bright halo that appears only during totality, it is a million times dimmer than the rest of … Read more
Listen, it’s not that I actually want to kill the sun – I just want to figure out how. But when I told my colleagues at New Scientist that I was recruiting scientists to do just this, I was met with baffled looks. I write about space every single day, and I find it endlessly … Read more
By its very nature, science fiction encompasses a vast and sprawling world of stories, from the galaxy-spanning novels of Iain M. Banks and Ursula K. Le Guin to the dystopias of Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro. Asking our team of dedicated staff here at New Scientist to pick their personal favourite, then, has created an … Read more
Jane Khomi/Moment RF/Getty Images Rosewater: Opening Day 2066 Now I’m at the Integrity Bank job for forty minutes before the anxieties kick in. It’s how I usually start my day. This time it’s because of a wedding and a final exam, though not my wedding and not my exam. In my seat by the window … Read more
The culture that built Stonehenge suffered a mysterious population decline Wirestock, Inc./Alamy The Neolithic culture in Europe that produced megastructures such as Stonehenge went into a major decline around 5400 years ago. Now we have the best evidence yet that this was due to plague. Sequencing of ancient DNA from 108 individuals who lived in … Read more
People demonstrating outside the venue for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in London in October 2023 ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images “The UK prepared for the wrong pandemic.” That is a key conclusion from the first part of a government inquiry examining the UK’s response to the covid-19 pandemic, specifically looking at its preparedness and resilience. … Read more