Science
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Election Officials Are Preparing for Prediction Markets to Sow Chaos in the Midterms
From threats to the safety of poll workers to voters who can’t distinguish between odds and results, prediction markets are already scrambling the political process.
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The Skylight Buddy Promised to Engage My Kid in His Nighttime Routine—and It Delivered
This kid-friendly version of Skylight’s digital calendar actually gets my son to brush his teeth and put on his PJs in a timely fashion.
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Weightlifting makes older women leaner, stronger and more mobile | New Scientist
Lifting at least 50 kilograms twice a week improved older women's muscle mass, mobility and balance
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Quantum computing may be facing a replication crisis | New Scientist
A review of thousands of scientific papers about quantum computers finds that most don’t provide code that can be tested on independent devices or that the code doesn’t work
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A One-Two Punch Has Atlantic Hurricane Season on the Ropes
El Niño coupled with Saharan dust is making this year’s hurricane season a dud. But there’s still potential for dangerous storms.
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Our blood's body clock may be causing anaemia cases to be missed | New Scientist
Blood tests may give different results depending on when in the day, or the year, they are taken, which could result in people missing out on an anaemia diagnosis
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Rogue hacking AIs have changed the cybersecurity landscape | New Scientist
Attackers with no technical skills can now use AI models to find and exploit loopholes quickly and they can deploy them on a massive scale, raising fears that organisations without large budgets for cyber defence will be much more vulnerable
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There’s a New Link Between Gut Health and Alzheimer’s Disease
Researchers found that a metabolite produced by gut bacteria can weaken the barrier that protects the brain and promote changes associated with the cognitive disease.
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Astronomers Discover the Existence of a Black Hole Star
An object observed by the James Webb Space Telescope lends credence to a strange explanation for the mysterious red spots in the early universe.
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Someone Finally Fixed Installing Apps on a Mac
The installation utility EasyDMG makes it so you never drag and drop an icon again.
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Inside the Experimental Traps Scientists Set for Ghostly Neutrinos
Observatories have been built in mines, deep under the Antarctic ice sheet, and elsewhere in an effort to detect the fleeting particles.
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Turns Out, a New Shape Is Exactly What Samsung Needed for Its Folding Phone
Nearly a decade later, Samsung’s Galaxy Fold finally comes into its own.
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The TerraMow V1000 Shows Just How Far Robot Mowers Have Come
With automatic mapping, Spot Mode functionality, and smart AI cameras, the TerraMow V1000 is the complete package.
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It’s Never Too Early to Start Planning for the Next Two Solar Eclipses
In 2027 and 2028, there will be two spectacular, long-duration solar eclipses. Here’s what you need to know about them.
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Instapaper, the Original Read-It-Later App, Just Got a Huge Upgrade
New fonts, better customization, and a whole new layout all make it worth dusting off your Instapaper account.
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I Gave My Apple Watch a Makeover With These Accessories
Instead of buying a new Apple Watch, I found the accessories that made the one I have much better. Here’s what I recommend.
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Puerto Rico Is Rationing Water. It Could’ve Avoided It by Harvesting Rainwater
The island could capture billions of gallons of water a year if it implemented systems to catch it as it falls from the sky.
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Amazon Can Use Your Twitch Content to Train Its AI—Unless You Opt Out
When Twitch announced that streamers could opt out, thousands of users questioned why their content was being used to train AI models in the first place.
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Zyzz Was the Original Looksmaxxer. His Rise and Untimely Death Feel More Relevant Than Ever
A new Apple documentary explores the life of Aziz “Zyzz” Shavershian, who rocketed to internet fame in an age before influencers, then died at age 22 in 2011.
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I Look Ridiculous on This Electric BMX—and I Love It
Retrospec’s Joe Rev 2 is an eye-catching, no-frills ebike made for cruising, grocery runs, and feeling like a kid again.
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This Beautifully Weird Necklace Is Secretly a USB Drive
Noware’s Puff necklace whimsically reimagines flash drives, turning something functional into personalized jewelry.
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The Auk Mini 2 Is the Indoor Garden Upgrade I Wanted
Auk improves on its original Mini with better lights, a sleeker design, and fun new colors.
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The Next Big Influencer Is This 4-Foot-Tall Robot From China
The Unitree G1 has found online fame as a relatively affordable robot that can charm a crowd. But can it ever hold down a real job?
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New York City Lawmakers Push to ‘Ban the Scan’ at MSG
At a press conference outside Madison Square Garden, politicians, musicians, and privacy advocates argued for tighter restrictions on how public venues deploy biometric surveillance.
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THC in cannabis may reduce nightmares in people with PTSD | New Scientist
A drug made up of THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, reduced the severity and incidence of nightmares in people with PTSD
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Test moderators use AI-generated writing to judge literacy standards | New Scientist
To cut the cost of key stage 2 assessments, a UK government project proposes to use scripts generated by ChatGPT instead of real children's writing as examples supplied to moderators who check that grades are awarded fairly
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Tech Visionary Says the Big AI Labs Don’t Get What People Want
Tim O’Reilly built a publishing empire that AI is helping to destroy. Yet he loves AI—as long as it’s open source.
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I Wore an Electrical Muscle Stimulation Body Suit to Zap Myself Into Fitness
Can electrifying your workout offer a shortcut to a stronger, fitter you? I sweated in a skintight EMS suit for two months to find out.
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Her Brain Was Broken. It Was Fixed With Sound—Not a Scalpel
One woman’s meth addiction was so bad, the only option left might have been brain surgery. Then a single session of noninvasive, focused ultrasound seemed to do what years of treatment could not.
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This Art Project Slows Down Citi Bikes to Make NYC’s Rent Crisis Feel Real
Ground Truth makes the shared rental bikes harder to pedal through rent-burdened neighborhoods, offering a tangible way for people to experience income inequality.
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These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI
Joi AI hired 10 people to masturbate using AI companions as part of a monthlong “wellness” study. The company claims the practice could help “solve male loneliness.”
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All the Ways the Dell XPS 13 Surpasses the MacBook Neo (and Doesn’t)
It’s amazing how few compromises Dell made to get the new XPS 13 down to $700, but I strongly recommend the $900 model, which comes with 16 GB of RAM.
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People Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots. These Lawmakers Want to Stop Them
Human-AI marriages are not currently recognized by US law. Some Republican state policymakers are drafting legislation to keep it that way.
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5 Weird Tricks for Having a Brain
From the multibrained octopus to the bitty brain organoid, we’re all just inference engines making flawed bets on the future. Here are the five insights your brain will need to survive.
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Fishers detonate a bomb every hour on one Indonesian coral reef | New Scientist
The use of explosives to kill fish is widespread across the tropics, and acoustic monitoring in an Indonesian archipelago detected more than 3500 explosions in 483 days
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Your Home Office Is Being Held Back by Your Computer Monitor
My expert advice on what computer monitor to buy for your home office, ranging from budget-tier to fully featured.
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How bad is the UK drought and how long will it continue? | New Scientist
Almost three-quarters of England is now in drought conditions, resulting in restrictions on water use in many areas and severe wildfires – here's how it's affecting farming, wildlife and trees
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FTC Strikes Deals to Ignore Unlawful Credit Discrimination
The agency signed agreements to not enforce parts of three federal court orders against auto dealers accused of discrimination—and didn’t notify judges or at least one of its coplaintiffs.
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The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty
A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.
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Why do people ask so few questions in conversation? | New Scientist
We've perhaps been conditioned to not ask too many questions, in case it comes across as rude or prying. But columnist David Robson argues that asking people open-ended questions benefits our wellbeing, and doesn't have to be complicated
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Monsoon-driven wildfires may have shaped human evolution | New Scientist
A reconstruction of East Africa's environment 1.75 million years ago suggests wildfires spiked during wetter times, which may have influenced human evolution
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Mark Zuckerberg’s AI Manifesto Is 6,500 Words—and Barely Says Anything
AI is shifting the culture, from tech CEO manifestos to 1 am job interviews. We unpack some of the latest, along with the top findings from Black Hat and Defcon, this week on “Uncanny Valley.”
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The Safety Reckoning Inside OpenAI
OpenAI’s rogue agent hack was a watershed moment for AI safety and cybersecurity. It also sparked internal questions about the culture that led to it.
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'Remarkable' discovery upends our understanding of how brains store memories | New Scientist
Memories in mice persisted even after they lost the connections that we thought were needed for recall, expanding our knowledge of memory in the mammalian brain
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Quantum entanglement is key to solving 250-year-old maths problem | New Scientist
Analysis of a mathematical puzzle that Leonhard Euler deemed unsolvable in the 1700s reveals that the crucial ingredient for cracking it after all is quantum entanglement
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Night Sweats, Be Gone! Here Are the Best WIRED-Tested Cooling Mattresses
Nothing ruins a great night of sleep faster than getting too hot. We slept on a myriad of cooling mattresses to find which ones drew the heat away best.
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The Painful Truth of Exactly How ICE’s New Shock Gloves Actually Work
ICE is spending millions on shock gloves designed to overpower subjects through intense, localized pain.
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DNA reveals a society organised around women in pre-Roman Britain | New Scientist
Descent passed from mother to daughter rather than from father to son, a study of more than 500 Iron Age individuals from north-east England suggests
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Google's Excellent Wireless Charging Puck and Stand Is 50 Percent Off Right Now
Speedy Qi2 wireless charging in a magnetic puck and stand combo makes Google’s Pixelsnap well worth grabbing at half price.
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Why This Prediction Market Banned Teens
Jacob Fortinsky, the CEO and cofounder of the new prediction market Novig, says his outfit isn’t like those other markets. You know the ones.
