Priest Don Giuseppe Castelvecchio hasn't been able to conduct services in his San Fiorano church for two months. In the town where restrictions are easing, his sermons delivered from a loud speaker in a car are a welcome relief. Joe Davies reports.

Rival lawmakers scuffled in Hong Kong's legislature on Friday in a row over electing the chairman of a key committee, a fresh sign of rising political tension as the coronavirus pandemic tapers off in the Chinese-ruled city. Francesca Lynagh reports.

A campaign in Mexico City to get residents to wear face masks is now reinforced with a new secret weapon: clowns. They're telling metro riders, 'Wear a face mask -- don't be a clown!' as they spray riders' hands with disinfectant. Gavino Garay has more.

The grunts, groans and the sound of pulsing music and crashing weights has returned to some of Beijing's gyms after being closed for nearly three months due to the coronavirus outbreak. Ciara Lee reports.

Climate models show that as the world warms, tropical cyclones will travel more slowly, dumping more rain in one place and making high-speed winds batter buildings for longer

Satellites have revealed the fracking heartland of the US is leaking methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, at a record-breaking rate.

Dingoes have been persecuted in Australia for centuries for killing livestock, but protecting them could benefit the environment and aid recovery from the devastating fires

A long-standing hypothesis suggests the BCG vaccine also serves to generally enhance the immune system, meaning it could protect against covid-19, and trials are under way to find out

AI can check satellite images of the ocean and distinguish between floating materials such as seaweed or plastics, which could help clean-up efforts

While an alarming 9 per cent of insects on land are being lost each decade, the state of the world’s insects is much more nuanced than warnings of an insect apocalypse

We need to be very cautious about preliminary studies estimating how many people have already been infected by the coronavirus

Bamboo is a renewable material that when microwaved becomes stronger by weight than steel or concrete – which could make it ideal for constructing buildings, cars and planes

Black paint usually absorbs heat, but a new two-layer polymer paint reflects infrared light and keeps objects 16°C cooler, which could help make buildings more energy efficient

Srinivisa Ramanujan’s ideas seemed to come from a parallel universe and mathematicians are still getting to grips with them today, say Ken Ono and Robert Schneider

A 3D printed grate can be used to make a smart window that blocks heat from sunlight out in the summer while letting it through in the winter, conserving energy

Coffee has been linked to changes on our DNA that affect how active certain genes are. The finding may help explain some of coffee's touted health benefits

The ongoing spread of bluetongue virus among European farm animals may have started when a cow was inseminated with infected bull semen stored from an earlier outbreak

Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and bats have evolved to be good at metabolising alcohol, according to a study that suggests many mammals can get drunk

In TV series Devs, a tech company has built an extremely powerful quantum computer. The show is both beautiful and captivating, says Rowan Hooper

Trials of experimental coronavirus vaccines are already under way, but it’s still likely to be years before one is ready and vaccination may not even be possible

A robot that uses artificial intelligence to find and remove weeds could eventually be used as an alternative to chemical insecticides

Over half the world’s wild tigers now live 5 kilometres from a road, and infrastructure projects planned in Asia could fragment their habitat further

Many studies suggest coronavirus has low transmission rates among children, but there are still risks to reopening schools that were closed due to social distancing policies

Lockdown measures and pandemic-related anxiety may be making you have more vivid dreams. Evidence suggests talking about them can help

Vampire bats are social creatures that build relationships through grooming and food-sharing, but when they feel ill, they self-isolate and call out for contact far less

Healthcare systems need to prepare for the extensive physiotherapy and mental rehabilitation that people put on ventilators for covid-19 will need as they recover

NASA has awarded $967 million to three space flight companies – Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX – to build lunar landers that will be part of the Artemis programme to send humans to the moon by 2024

Slow-moving underwater currents are leading to build ups of microplastics in biologically rich areas on the sea floor

Stars that are similar to the sun in every way we can measure are mostly more active than the sun, which hints that the sun’s activity may ramp up someday, risking solar eruptions

For years, the oldest turtle fossils we could find had fully formed shells. Now, more primitive fossils are revealing the strange tale of how turtle shells evolved

We tend to overestimate our height and underestimate our weight to fit society’s ideals, or because we think we're still the same as our younger selves

SpaceX’s first crewed launch is planned for 27 May and will be run from a mission control with desks set six feet apart to comply with social distancing protocols

For orangutans, scratching is contagious – but unexpectedly, the behaviour is transmitted more between individuals that do not know each other well

Martha Wells's action-packed novel Network Effect puts you inside the head of a Murderbot. It raises fascinating questions you will think about for a long time, says Sally Adee

A fresh look at the world’s oldest religious texts suggests ancient Egyptians saw the sky as a water-filled iron container from which chunks fell to Earth as meteorites

The UK government will begin trials of its coronavirus contact-tracing app this week, but what impact it will have on slowing the spread of covid-19 is unclear

Our best mathematical theory of consciousness is sparking a rethink of one of science’s hardest problems – how simple matter gives rise to a complex mind

From vintage satellites to lunar rovers, space archaeologist Alice Gorman is teasing out a unique history of humanity from the objects we've dispatched from Earth

Brain implants have revealed that we replay conscious experiences while we sleep, with the same patterns of neurons firing during sleep as in waking life

Telling Lies is a game where you sift through video calls to solve a mystery. Half the time you don't know what you should be doing, but that's part of the fun, says Jacob Aron

Many countries are focusing coronavirus testing on people who have covid-19 symptoms. But regularly testing all essential workers would have more of an impact

Amid the global coronavirus outbreak, a second epidemic of preliminary, unverified and misinterpreted research has broken out. Can it be fixed?

The BCG tuberculosis vaccine boosts the production of immune cells and this may explain how it protects newborns from dying of sepsis

The leading hypothesis for how the moon formed involves a collision between a Mars-sized object and Earth that would have boiled away elements like carbon, making its discovery on the moon a mystery

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and improves recipients’ mental and financial well-being

Human behaviour is key to the spread of coronavirus, so government scientists are trying to control our decisions. Does it work, and what happens when they get it wrong?

The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic

New Zealand is on track to eliminate covid-19 altogether, but keeping the virus out for good will be a challenge, and the economic impacts are likely to hurt

Global warming has already made parts of the world – including cities in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates – hotter than the human body can withstand

A Dutch restaurant has come up with an idea on how to offer classy outdoor dining in the age of social distancing: small glass cabins built for two or three people, creating intimate cocoons on a public patio. Emma Jehle has more.