The World, the Universe and Us

#214 A multi-talented brain cell has been discovered – and it’s a hybrid of the two we already know about, neurons and glia. These glutamatergic astrocytes could provide insights into our brain health and function, and even enable treatments for conditions like Parkinsons. Building a bridge over a moving glacier is no mean feat. But rising global temperatures have thawed the permafrost in Denali N...

Whether it’s the hidden colours of ultraviolet that bees can see, the complex rhythms and tones of birdsong that we’re unable to hear, or the way a dog can smell the past in incredible detail, the way humans experience the world is not the only way. Every animal has its own ‘umwelt’ – a unique sensory experience that allows it to perceive the world differently. As humans we can barely begin to und...

#213 Our ancestors may have very nearly gone extinct. Around a million years ago, there were just 1300 humans left and it stayed that way for over a hundred thousand years. This is the dramatic claim of research into the genetic diversity of our early ancestors – though some scientists disagree with the conclusions. Despite being completely paralysed and unable to speak, Rodney Gorham can still co...

In an unexpected twist of empathy, Leah and Chelsea are putting their heads together to save the Earth… yes, you read that right! Asteroid researcher and planetary astronomer Andy Rivkin of John Hopkins University joins them to discuss the myriad ways in which we could deflect, destroy or intercept asteroids headed towards Earth. Among the team’s suggestions: a humongous net (a world-wide-web?), a...

#212 India is celebrating after successfully - and gently - landing on the Moon. A huge win for the country, which is now only the fourth nation to do so. A look at the country’s next ambitions after a historic touchdown. Plus why Russia’s rival mission ended in disaster, and the future of lunar exploration worldwide.  Cells found in placentas may be able to treat heart attacks. Researchers were f...

Struggling to choose what to watch? Whether it’s sci-fi, medical dramas or documentaries about the natural world, we’ve got you covered. Our TV columnist Bethan Ackerley shares a rundown of her top TV choices from 2023 so far, as well as what to look out for the rest of the year.  Reviews of some of the shows featured in this episode:   Foundation (Apple TV) The Last Of Us (HBO Max and Sky Atlanti...

#211 The hottest July on record, a global surge in wildfires, bleached corals and collapsed cactuses - the story of climate change feels dire right now. But before you bury your head in the sand or succumb to doom and gloom - a dose of reality and hope. In this climate special, a look at how our record-setting year fits the predictions, the incredible good news about the global energy transition a...

As if burrowing through a planet and blowing up the sun weren’t enough… This time, Chelsea and Leah hope to harness the power of gravitational waves to destroy everything we know and love.  Christopher Berry at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)  explains how they could create their own gravitational waves using a bespoke black hole machine, and helps them understand ho...

#210 Ultra-processed foods are bad for us and we should avoid them at all costs – right? Well, it’s actually not as clear cut as that. The foods may actually form a much more important part of healthy diets than we release.   Nuclear fusion, which could some day offer a low-waste source of clean power, is one step closer to becoming viable. Last year scientists managed to get more power out of a f...

Scientist and broadcaster Alice Roberts has written her first children’s book. The fictional tale follows prehistoric girl Tuuli, and captures the story of her encounter with a strange boy who leads her on a great adventure. Inspired by her own experiences trekking through the arctic, the book imagines what life would’ve been like for humans of the time, how they might’ve interacted with neanderth...

#209 The saga of the room-temperature superconductor continues. The creators of a new material called LK-99 maintain that it perfectly conducts electricity at room temperature and pressure and so other scientists are racing to try to test it for themselves. If the findings are true it would be transformative to science and technology. It’s not just researchers, however, who are testing the materia...

In this episode of Dead Planets Society, Leah and Chelsea embark on a boring journey… no, as in they literally try to bore through a planet! With the help of planetary scientists,  Baptiste Journaux of the University of Washington and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology, our hosts drill down into the science of achieving this momentous task, discussing which planets are pe...

New Scientist Weekly #208 Better and cheaper treatments for everything from sickle cell disease to ageing should come as a result of a new technique for delivering mRNA to blood stem cells. The technique has been adapted from the technology in mRNA covid-19 vaccines and could even be used for doping in sport. Controversial claims of a superconductor that works at room temperature and pressure have...

First J. Robert Oppenheimer created the weapon, then he fought for years to warn of its dangers. During the second world war, the so-called “father of the atomic bomb”, led a team of scientists in the US in a race against Nazi Germany to create the first nuclear weapon. Then it was used to kill thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s new 3-hour blockbuster...

New Scientist Weekly #206 A major theory of consciousness is being put to the test with brain scans. Integrated information theory proposes a value called "phi" to represent consciousness and in a new experiment, it seems to work. Does the discovery bring us any closer to solving the elusive “hard problem” of neuroscience?  Graphene has been hailed as a super material since its synthesis in 2004....

The sun is the centre of our solar system, the parent body to all the planets, unquestionably the most important cosmic object for life on Earth. But what if we were to destroy it? It turns out that is easier said than done. In the premier episode of the Dead Planets Society podcast, our hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte resort to extreme methods in their quest to put out the sun. They learn that...

New Scientist Weekly #205 Following a year of incredible, awe-inspiring images from deep space, the team is celebrating the 1st birthday of the James Webb Space Telescope. They reflect on the amazing discoveries so far, and look at how JWST will alter our understanding of the universe. From this summer, the International Seabed Authority will be considering licences for deep sea mining, despite th...

Our world has led a long, sometimes tumultuous, and always complicated life. Over the last four billion years, Earth’s geology has changed radically and dramatically. Earth, a new five-part BBC documentary narrated by naturalist Chris Packham, tells the story of this change by looking at significant moments in the planet’s history - from the dramatic moment when nearly all life on Earth was wiped...

New Scientist Weekly #203 July has become a record-busting month. In fact, this month has seen the hottest global average temperatures ever recorded on Earth. With heat waves hitting the US and the UK coast, the team finds out what’s driving temperatures to such extremes. Driverless cars could someday go quantum. LiDAR, a light-detection device used in driverless cars to help them navigate, could...

New Scientist Weekly #202 In a potentially era-defining scientific breakthrough, we are now able to detect some of the biggest objects in the cosmos. Researchers have figured out how to use gravitational waves and dead stars to locate supermassive black holes. The team says this discovery could revolutionise our understanding of the origins of the universe. It’s often assumed that men in hunter-ga...

New Scientist Weekly #201 A new therapy is being used to treat a rare genetic disorder in babies, before they’ve even been born. The condition, called X-linked ectodermal dysplasia, which only affects boys, leaves them with few teeth, sparse hair and no sweat glands. The team learns about a groundbreaking technique which delivers a key protein to the fetus through the amniotic fluid. With extreme...

New Scientist Weekly #200 Always trust your gut! A recent study shows that the composition of our gut microbiome may be directly linked to our overall intelligence, with certain bacteria, perhaps, influencing brain size; other bacteria, not so much. Alexandra Thompson discusses these remarkable findings with the team.  Cephalopods have some extraordinary capabilities, and new research conducted by...

Are humans the product of their environment, or do we shape the world around us? Lewis Dartnell, author of a series of books which explores this very question, sits down with culture and comment editor Alison Flood to discuss his most recent publication, Being Human. Lewis delves into the extraordinary role played by our biology in driving our behaviours and shaping our history. By re-examining el...

Welcome to CultureLab, from New Scientist podcasts. In this episode, culture and comment editor Alison Flood speaks with composer Sarah Angliss.  Sarah has written a new opera called Giant, which is based on the true story of the 18th-century “Irish giant” Charles Byrne, who had an undiagnosed benign tumour of his pituitary gland which caused him to grow to be 2.31m tall. Byrne’s corpse was stolen...

A species of ancient human with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s is upending what we thought we knew about human cognition and culture. Recent findings from Lee Berger and his team of palaeontologists suggest our extinct relative, Homo naledi, may have engraved symbols on cave walls and deliberately buried its dead. These people lived some 300,000 years ago and the team discusses the dramatic ne...