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Renowned climate scientist James Hansen says the developing super El Niño has already "blown past" previous events with months to go before it peaks

Intense fires are already burning in Indonesia, and there could be much worse to come as the Super El Niño ramps up

Biogerontologists are exploring the upper limit for human life. A recent study has it verging on two centuries – but columnist Graham Lawton finds reason to be sceptical

A personalised mRNA cancer vaccine has produced positive results in a final-stage trial involving skin cancer, raising hopes that this approach could work against many cancers

For the past decade, depression has been linked to a shrunken hippocampus, which has a vital role in memory. But a large study using up-to-date scanning techniques suggests this may not be the case

ADHD is a real condition that can have serious consequences if undiagnosed. An ill-informed documentary that suggests it is a modern, social construct could cause harm, says Caroline Williams

Why do humans have a common sense of beauty for things like sunsets, and do other animals share this appreciation? And why can’t we cool water as quickly as we can heat it?

Kimon de Greef's The Ego Trip chronicles the rise of a potent psychedelic drug, from the toads that secrete it to the man who claimed it has amazing powers. Olivia Goldhill discovers an extraordinary tale

Answers continue to pour in as New Scientist readers ponder this question, with one reader widening it out to consider dragonflies, and another focusing on cluster flies

A rich widow, a disillusioned cop and a dim hypersled driver are caught in the machinations of the oppressive party ruling the Decurion Empire in Richard Swan's The Infinite State. Sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson enjoys their struggles

Roie Galitz's breathtaking shot is one of the winners of the 2026 World Press Photo Contest, praised for its unusual perspective and scale

For decades, women have felt the need to hide the impact of changes in their hormones, while scientists have excluded women from research to avoid hormonal fluctuations complicating their research. Thankfully, this is starting to change

Our readers continue to grapple with this question, coming at it from different angles – and also considering how big a planet has to be to retain its atmosphere

We may have clusters of immune cells at the back of our skull that help ward off conditions like brain cancer

AI agents devised a way to reduce friction of an airplane wing model even without access to a costly computer simulation

To gain the benefits of sleep, it was thought that the whole brain must switch off. But experiments suggest micro-napping neurons can improve memory and learning while we’re awake

Brain organoids have been grown and studied for five years, the longest time to date, and their activity suggests they had a sense of time going by