New Scientist Australian Edition

New Scientist covers the latest developments in science and technology that will impact your world. New Scientist employs and commissions the best writers in their fields from all over the world. Our editorial team provide cutting-edge news, award-winning features and reports, written in concise and clear language that puts discoveries and advances in the context of everyday life today and in the future.

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What’s the difference? • Understanding brain divergence between the sexes could improve mental health

New Scientist Australian Edition

A selfie with the blue planet

Stem cells grown for experimental therapies pose a cancer risk

Polar bears seem to be ageing faster as the Arctic warms

New kind of magnetism revealed • Altermagnets could make it easier to cram data onto computer hard drives

Genetically modified bananas approved for the first time

Super-thickeners made of starch could cut calorie content

Container ship tests system to capture its own emissions

Is cosmic dust key to life’s origins? • Key ingredients for early life may have been delivered to glacial ponds from space

Female scorpions don’t mind being stung during sex

Field notes Brooklyn, New York • The start-up making jet fuel with carbon dioxide By rethinking a century-old process, captured emissions can be used to produce cleaner jet fuel, finds James Dinneen

Cell regeneration brings back sight • Vision has been restored in mice with damaged optic nerves, raising hope for glaucoma treatment

Microbes on plant roots change the taste of your tea

Can deepfakes be stopped? • AI-manipulated videos are used to harass people, scam money and influence elections. Is it too late to control them, asks Jeremy Hsu

Scammers use stolen voices

Humour may originate in the way great apes love to tease

Carbon dioxide gas glimpsed in Callisto’s thin atmosphere

Even tiny LSD doses affect the brain • A measure of consciousness called neural complexity increases with small amounts of the drug

Flea toad may be the world’s smallest vertebrate

Newborn black holes spew gas so hard they almost stop spinning

Nanobot uses a DNA clutch to engage its engine

Beef-rice hybrid is more sustainable

Our interpretation of emojis can vary

Ancients may have taken beloved pets to the grave

Really brief

A toxic debate • Growing alarm over “ultra-processed food” is anti-science and misplaced. Stick to the evidence, says biologist Jenny Chapman

This changes everything • When fandom becomes politics The conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift is a “psy op” is a symptom of the profound confusion online media is creating, writes Annalee Newitz

End of the ice

Your letters

What technology means for us • An ambitious exploration of our relationship with technology makes for interesting reading in the age of AI, finds Sandrine Ceurstemont

The persuaders • Could you get someone to change a deeply held belief? A new book has some intriguing lessons, finds Alison Flood

New Scientist recommends

The TV column • A bumpy ride Astronaut Jo Ericsson is alone on the International Space Station after a mysterious object hits it. Nothing is what it seems in Constellation, a show with frustratingly off-piste science. Still, it looks amazing, says Bethan Ackerley

YOUR AMAZING BRAIN

Time to heal all wounds • Gardening wisdom of the past 50 years has said that painting a tree’s pruning wounds is pointless – but James Wong isn’t so sure

Puzzles

Almost the last word

Tom Gauld for New Scientist

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Twisteddoodles for New Scientist