The World, the Universe and Us

With so many new TV series and documentaries available, it can be tough to decide what's truly worth your time. That’s where our TV columnist Bethan Ackerley comes in. From the genetically-gifted superheroes of Supacell…to a sobering documentary about the ethics of assisted dying, she has a wealth of options for your next night in. Bethan and host Christie Taylor share a rundown of the top science...

#262 Geologists have just drilled deeper into Earth’s mantle than ever before. The hole is in an area of the ocean called Atlantis Massif, where the upper mantle is exposed. Reaching 1268 metres deep, this incredible sample core could help uncover secrets to the very origins of life. Ancient human ancestors called Homo floresiensis and known as the “hobbits” may have evolved their short stature mu...

Earth and all the other planets in our solar system are being dragged on a joyride through the universe, as the Dead Planeteers attempt to move the sun. How slowly would you have to move the sun for its gravity to hold onto the planets? Would any planets end up flinging out of orbit? And which planets can we afford to lose along the way? To answer their many questions, Leah and Chelsea are joined...

#261 What was the first life on Earth like? Ancient fossils hint it could be a primitive kind of bacteria – but these 3.5 billion-year-old fossilised cells are controversial since they’re vastly bigger than any modern bacteria. But there’s now reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, they really are what they seem. Three game-changing drugs approved by the US for the treatment of Alzheimer’s dise...

Quantum theory describes the tiny building blocks that make up everything around us. It has made many successful predictions but could a new, more radical idea help us make better sense of the world around us? Could it even be the answer to creating world peace? Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer behind the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. His idea suggests...

#260 Most of us imagine plants when we think about the production of oxygen. But turns out, in the deep sea, metal-rich rocks also seem to generate oxygen. This surprising discovery suggests they may have a much more important role in their ecosystem than we originally thought – and is fueling more calls to ban deep sea mining, which would target these same rocks.  Drinking a glass of wine once in...

What would it take to set Uranus ablaze? Is it even possible to burn it in the typical sense? If anyone can figure it out, it's the Dead Planets Society. Join Dead Planeteers Leah and Chelsea as they invite planetary scientist Paul Byrne back to the podcast, to join in more of their chaotic antics.  This mission is less about destruction (though it’s definitely also about destruction) and more abo...

#259 More people in the US are getting bird flu. Though numbers are small – just five new cases, all mild – every new case is a reason for concern. How and why is it being transmitted – and how is it being monitored? What if you could make a sailboat that’s pushed not by wind, but lasers? Breakthrough Starshot is a mission attempting to send a spacecraft to our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri,...

What if we told you plants can hear and see? And memorise information? And track time to adapt their pollination techniques? And even look out for their family members? These are just some of the remarkable behaviours plants are capable of – many of which we’re only just learning about now.  Science journalist Zoë Schlanger’s new book The Light Eaters will make you question everything you currentl...

#258 Fancy a bite of woolly mammoth jerky? A beef-jerky-like fossil of this prehistoric creature has been discovered – a metre-long piece of skin still covered in hair. And the most amazing thing is that the entire genome has remained intact, giving more insight into these creatures than ever before. Could this help bring woolly mammoths back to life? There is a way to make butter not from cows, n...

Primordial black holes are tiny versions of the big beasts you typically think of. They’re so small, they could easily fit inside stuff, like a planet, or a star… or a person. So, needless to say, this has piqued the curiosity of our Dead Planeteers. Leah and Chelsea want to know, can you put primordial black holes inside things and what happens if you do?  Black hole astronomer Allison Kirkpatric...

#257 Two extraordinary findings have been unearthed about our ancient ancestors. The first is a discovery from a cave in Australia – evidence of what could be the world’s oldest ritual, practised continuously for 12,000 years. And the second is the discovery that the world’s oldest evidence of storytelling may be even older than we thought. We may be able to mine for nickel using flowers. The meth...

Despite humans having never set foot on Mars, scientists have been working for decades to paint a picture of life on the red planet. With the help of photos and videos from robotic rovers, scientists now know more than ever about its rocky terrain, early history and current climate. Now, experts are painting a fuller picture of the dusty planet by using audio recordings captured by these rovers. C...

#256 A new gene editing technique may be more powerful than CRISPR. Bridge editing is still in its infancy, but could be revolutionary for its ability to more specifically target gene substitutions. This method of altering DNA may let us create single treatments for gene mutations across large groups of people – something even CRISPR can’t do. China’s Chang’e 6 spacecraft has returned to Earth wit...

The ancient Greeks once proposed the Earth was at the centre of our solar system and everything orbited us. We like that idea. Let’s make it happen. But as Dead Planeteers Leah and Chelsea find out, if you bring back geocentrism, Earth would only be king of the universe for a very, very short time – before all hell breaks loose. It starts with enlarging the earth and potentially turning it into a...

#255 Why do some people seem to be naturally immune to covid-19? We may finally have the answer and it’s to do with differences in the way immune cells function. Will the finding help us predict who’s immune and who isn’t – and more? Artificial intelligence is being used to tackle the problem of clearing mines from enormous swaths of Ukraine. Russia has scattered vast amounts of ordinance across U...

We like to think of science and medicine as unbiased, unaffected by social constructs. But we see evidence to the contrary everyday, from false yet persistent claims that black people’s bones are denser to the reality that the covid-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted people of colour.  In her debut book Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill, science journalist Layal Liverpool explores the hea...

We know elephants are smart, but it seems we’ve only scratched the surface in understanding their intelligence. It turns out African elephants seem to have unique names for each other – maybe even nicknames. If it’s true, humans would no longer be alone in this practice. A team has been analysing their rumbly greeting calls using AI. Is this a hint that we’ve been wrong about other animals, too? I...

For the Dead Planeteers, one moon around Earth isn’t enough. They want to pack as many moons into the night sky as possible. But how many can you fit in orbit without everything becoming unstable and destructive? To answer this, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte enlist the help of astrophysicist Sean Raymond. Sean co-authored a research paper that sparked Leah’s New Scientist article titled: Moons can...

#253 The moon may hold the answer to a decades-long physics conundrum – all we need to do is drill several kilometres into its surface. For years, physicists have been searching for protons that fall apart or decay into other particles, but they’ve always come up empty handed. So why do they think they might find them on the moon?  A new update on the state of the world’s climate has not brought c...

If (or maybe when) we find alien life in the universe, will it look like us? As telescopes become bigger, our ability to peer into the cosmos is only getting better. So the question may not be “will we find something?” but rather “what exactly should we be looking for?” Lisa Kaltenegger is an astrophysicist and founding director of Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute. She even works out of S...

#252 It is not wise to stick cheese on your pizza with glue, even if Google tells you to do it. This is just one recommendation in a string of blunders made by Google’s new AI search engine. It uses a large language model to summarise your searches, but clearly it’s not always working as planned. Can (and will) the company fix it?  No matter what language you speak, when you hear the word “bouba”,...

When you bring a giant magnet to Mars, apocalyptic eruptions are just the beginning. In an attempt to suck out all of the iron from the red planet, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte end up shattering it like an Easter egg. Their new cosmic plaything, a U-shaped Wile E. Coyote-esque magnet, is used in various different ways for the purposes of complete annihilation.  With the help of science journalist...

#251 Hurricane season in the Atlantic ocean is set to be extremely active, according to forecasts. Expect to see as many as 25 named tropical storms, with many likely to become hurricanes. Find out how high sea surface temperatures and shifting El Niño conditions are creating the perfect conditions for a potentially record breaking season.  The sun’s magnetic field may function quite differently t...

From Dune to The Three Body Problem, is science fiction having a moment? Attention to the genre, as well as TV and films based on it, seems to have exploded in the past few years. With sci-fi often getting a bad rap, it’s time to ditch the snobbery and celebrate its complexity and diversity. And who better to do this with than New Scientist’s science fiction columnist – and our former editor – Emi...