New Scientist

Nearly 80 years ago, Erwin Schrödinger used the physics of the day to try to understand the origins of life. Now, Stephon Alexander and Salvador Almagro-Moreno try to do the same with modern science

Since this time last year, many more countries and large companies have now pledged to reduce their net emissions to zero, but the details on how they plan to achieve it are still lacking

A small star called AU Microscopii seems to contain strange pockets of hydrogen that are more than 1500°C cooler than the rest of the star, and astronomers aren’t sure why

A parrot-beaked psittacosaurus dinosaur that lived in what is now China 130 million years ago had an abdominal scar that may have been equivalent to a mammalian belly button

Seabirds in Scotland are suffering amid a fast-spreading bird flu that has already killed nearly 400,000 birds globally since last October

During a court case about its policy to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, lawyers for the UK government admitted that its strategy would only achieve 95 per cent of a legally mandated target

The UK's Ministry of Defence has bought a quantum computer that doesn't require bulky cooling equipment, meaning it could one day be installed on military hardware such as tanks

After analysing the tissue of nearly 25,000 miscarriages, researchers found more than half were caused by randomly occurring chromosomal abnormalities, with many of the remaining losses probably being due to undetectable genetic errors

Australia has substantially reduced plastic pollution on its beaches through local initiatives like installing more bins and community clean-up events

It's time for China to put national pride aside and let another country host the UN COP15 biodiversity conference, for the sake of wildlife, plants and habitats worldwide, says Adam Vaughan

Twenty-five years of data suggest that the population of monarch butterflies is stable in their summer range across North America, upending the widely held notion that they are headed for extinction

Enzymes made by gut bacteria in larvae of the beetle Zophobas morio can degrade polystyrene used in packaging, and could help recycle plastics

A massive survey of the world's oceans has uncovered 5000 viruses that are new to science, some of which are involved in carbon capture on the sea floor

A time crystal has been created by firing lasers at rubidium atoms. It only lasts for 10 milliseconds, but it could reveal the precise scale at which quantum effects take hold

Not only do quantum computers have the edge over classical computers on some tasks, but they are also exponentially faster, according to a new mathematical proof

A girl with a rare disorder can now breathe more easily after receiving transfusions of a liquid that her sister's umbilical cord stem cells were grown in

A genetic and behavioural study has identified two mutations in a gene called melanocortin 2 that help explain why dogs are so social to humans

A single female of the Fernandina Island tortoise species that was thought to be extinct for a century has been found in the Galapagos Islands

Wrapping robots in human skin that has been grown in a lab may help us to feel more at ease when we interact with them

In a small study, babies born to women who caught covid-19 while pregnant had a 6 per cent chance of a developmental delay diagnosis by 1 year of age, compared with a 3 per cent chance among babies whose mothers weren't infected