Columnist news, articles and features | New Scientist

Skip to content

Environment

Why biodiversity offsetting is a contentious issue in conservation

As a new law is introduced in England, requiring developers to create 10 per cent more wildlife habitat than they destroy when developing a site, does it really work to destroy nature in one place, but preserve it elsewhere, asks Graham Lawton

Comment

Subscriber-only

Sand Martin Wood in Faugh near Carlisle, Cumbria, UK, was acquired by the carbon offset company co2balance in September 2006 It has been planted with a broad mix of native trees over 6 hectares and is managed for wildlife as well as the companies offset clients Though seen as controversial by some carbon offsetting is one way of a company or individual to reduce their emissions, as the trees absorb and sequestrate carbon as they grow. (Photo by Ashley Cooper/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images)

Physics

A tale of two mysteries: ghostly neutrinos and the proton decay puzzle

Comment

Subscriber-only

35-ton-capacity Prototype cryostat for LBNF / DUNE, Anode Plane Assemblies - Construction of the DUNE 35-ton prototype detector

Technology

How will AIs like ChatGPT affect elections this year?

Comment

Subscriber-only

A woman holding several small flags of the United States checks her mobile phone while waiting with other onlookers prior to the arrival of the US President in Warsaw on February 21, 2023. - US President Biden is due to deliver a speech in Warsaw later on February 21 at Royal Warsaw Castle Gardens. (Photo by Wojtek Radwanski / AFP) (Photo by WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

2WHYG59 Taylor Swift kisses Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce after the NFL Super Bowl 58 football game against the San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, in Las Vegas. The Chiefs won 25-22. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Society

The Taylor Swift 'psy op' conspiracy theory offers a troubling lesson

Comment

Free

Pitcairn Islands

Environment

What a trip to far-flung islands taught me about protecting our oceans

Comment

Subscriber-only

Fractal image electrons movement in a magnetic field or colorful space background. Quantum physics. Soap bubbles or photon, atom, neutrino. Nanotechnology, nanocosmos, nanoworld. 3d illustration.; Shutterstock ID 2130031907; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Space

In a new era of astronomy, we're feeling for vibrations in space-time

Comment

Subscriber-only

2MC69A3 Young university students using laptop and studying with books in library - School education concept

Technology

I'm teaching again after 20 years away. The tech is pure absurdity

Comment

Free

Health

How measles can do long-lasting damage to children's immune systems

Comment

Subscriber-only

The Iceland Ocean Cluster House

Environment

How an Icelandic scheme aims to use fish entirely and eliminate waste

Comment

Subscriber-only

Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA?s James Webb Space Telescope shows this to great effect. Cooler cosmic dust glows at the longer mid-infrared wavelengths, displaying the structure of WR 124?s nebula. The nebula is made of material cast off from the aging star in random ejections, and from dust produced in the ensuing turbulence. This brilliant stage of mass loss precedes the star?s eventual supernova, when nuclear fusion in its core stops and the pressure of gravity causes it to collapse in on itself, and then explode. As MIRI demonstrates here, Webb will help astronomers to explore questions that were previously only left to theory about how much dust stars like this create before exploding in a supernova, and how much of that dust is large enough to survive the blast and go on to serve as building blocks of future stars and planets.

Space

How galactic mysteries near and far are poised to shake up cosmology

Last year saw a host of exciting galaxy-related discoveries, led by a study about a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud. What a time to be an astrophysicist, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Comment

Subscriber-only

A-Lab on Thursday, April 6, 2023 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. 04/06/23

Technology

Are autonomous labs the future of science?

Comment

Subscriber-only

A road sign is posted near a parcel of land recently purchased by Flannery Associates near Rio Vista, California on September 15, 2023. A stealth campaign by Silicon Valley elites with a dream of turning a swath of California farmland into a new age city has ranchers who live here challenging their tactics as well as their motives. The project first surfaced when a mysterious buyer started gobbling up parcels of land in this rural outback between San Francisco and Sacramento. The buyer, first revealed by the New York Times in August, turned out to be a secretive outfit called Flannery Associates. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Society

The weird tale of California Forever, a tech billionaire instant city

Comment

Free

Youth from Fridays for Future organization stage a protest calling to cease fires and end fossil fuels in the conference venue, Blue Zone during the COP28, UN Climate Change Conference, held by UNFCCC in Dubai Exhibition Center, United Arab Emirates on December 8, 2023. COP28, running from November 30 to December 12 focuses on particular nations' decarbonisation goals. The Conference in Dubai focuses also on the most vulnerable communities and Loss and Damage (Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Environment

How 2023 saw the UK going backwards on climate issues

Comment

Subscriber-only

Beatriz Nascimento Afro-Brazilian academic and activist

Space

Two books to write and the universe to decipher – 2024’s gonna be busy

Comment

Subscriber-only