Pluses and minuses of new take on consciousness (2)

20 May 2020

Seven new coronaviruses have been found lurking in bats in Africa

18 May 2020

By testing bats in Gabon, researchers found seven coronaviruses that are new to science, but we don’t yet know if they could jump to people and cause illness

We may have missed half the microplastics in the ocean

15 May 2020

Collecting microplastics on the ocean’s surface with three kinds of net has revealed far more stringy fibres of plastic than previous studies found

Wally Funk and the future of female astronauts

14 May 2020

Between 1960 and 1961, thirteen American women - all pilots - qualified as astronauts. The Mercury 13 passed the same physical tests as America’s first male astronauts, yet they never made it beyond Earth's atmosphere. Wally Funk was one of them.

Algae transplant could protect coral reefs threatened by warming seas

13 May 2020

Heat-resistant algae made in a lab seem to protect coral from bleaching. They could help to save reefs if we fail to tackle global warming fast enough

Mouse embryos that are 4 per cent human are step towards spare organs

13 May 2020

Mouse embryos injected with human stem cells grew for 17 days, creating chimeras with up to 4 per cent human cells, a step towards growing human organs for transplant

New Scientist puzzle #59: Celebrate the differences

13 May 2020

Can you complete the diagram so that each of the nine circles contains a different digit from 1 to 9? Plus the solution to puzzle #58. Set by David Bodycombe

Don't miss: An explorer visits the world's artificial islands

13 May 2020

Online exhibitions, artificial island explorers and whether art and culture can thrive on the internet, all in this week's guide to what’s worth checking out

Neanderthals may have learned jewellery-making from us

11 May 2020

The first modern humans to settle in Europe made pendants out of bear teeth – and a few thousand years later, Neanderthals started doing it too

How long can viruses survive outside the body?

13 May 2020

What do we know about how long cold, flu and coronaviruses can live on surfaces?