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Earth was once covered by a global magma ocean, which later cooled and crystallised - now traces of this primordial event have been found in magma from a young volcano in the Indian Ocean ...

NASA's Swift space telescope is reaching the end of its two-decade run in orbit - unless a satellite launched on 3 July can give it a lifesaving boost ...

Female orangutans are generally solitary, but they travel more and eat less in an apparent effort to ensure their offspring have someone to play with ...

Natalya Saprunova's photo series exploring coastal erosion and permafrost thaw across Inuvialuit territories in Canada has won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo 2026 competition ...

It will be some months before the true toll of Europe's worst-ever heatwave is confirmed, but researchers can estimate a death count based on how many people died in Europe during previous hot periods ...

The question of how gravity interacts with the quantum world has long perplexed physicists, but a non-quantum theory of space-time could present an answer ...

What makes something alive? We simply don't know, but synthetic biologists are a step closer to providing an answer thanks to SpudCell, the most sophisticated attempt at creating an artificial life form yet ...

A proposed technique to counter global warming by spraying sun-reflecting particles near the poles would cause commercial flights to pass through clouds of sulphuric acid, posing a danger to passengers and crew ...

From friendship in a world of chatbots to what it means to be alive, this month's new popular science books are asking some big questions. Liz Else rounds up the ones she's most looking forward to ...

A prototype cell partly capable of replicating itself has been created using 36 existing bacterial genes, but it's not really a living organism - yet ...