The UK government has set a new target of recruiting an army of 18,000 coronavirus contact tracers by the middle of May, to be in place for the launch of the NHS contact tracing app

We are already seeing the pandemic's effects on mental health, and we need to act urgently to avoid a full-blown crisis, says Sam Howells  

A number of studies have found a link between air pollution and increased covid-19 deaths, but it isn't clear why. Both attack the lungs, but it could just be that more people live in polluted areas

Hyperconsumption adds to environmental destruction that brings people into contact with animal viruses that can spark pandemics. We have to avoid the temptation to rely on it to get us out, writes Graham Lawton

The remains of three slaves found in Mexico contain the earliest signs of the hepatitis B virus and yaws bacteria in the Americas, suggesting transatlantic slavery introduced these diseases

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

As many as 86 per cent of people meet the criteria for a psychiatric diagnosis by middle age – and in many cases, a different diagnosis at some other time

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

Australia recorded just 229 flu cases this April, compared with 18,705 last April, probably due to lockdown measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus

The Tully Monster is a famously odd 300-million-year-old fossil that looks like an alien, but a new analysis suggests it was a backboned animal like a hagfish or lamprey

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

People with rheumatoid arthritis often take medicines that can have damaging side-effects, but a system that uses red light to deliver drugs exactly where they are needed could help

China just tested its biggest rocket yet, along with a new capsule designed to carry humans to its planned space station, the moon and beyond

Astronomers found a star that appeared to be orbiting nothing at all – but it’s actually the closest black hole ever at just 1000 light years away

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

With social media, newspapers and politicians all espousing unverified covid-19 findings, use these seven signs to tell if a study should be treated with caution

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

People in lockdown are no longer trying to use technology to get their old lives back and that's a good thing, says Annalee Newitz

Mouse neurons trapped inside cages grow long appendages to connect to each other. Trapping the cells allows us to precisely control their growth

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

About 80 per cent of stars in the Milky Way’s central bulge have relatively close encounters with another star, which can fling off any planets orbiting them

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

I was scheduled to get a routine physical a while back, cancelled for obvious reasons, and last week Stevens County Medical Center called me to come in for it today, which feels odd. I guess our local clinic has not been overwhelmed — there have been zero reported cases of COVID-19 in Stevens County, perhaps […]

I’m back from my doctor’s visit! It was nothing but good news. The outside walls of the clinic are covered with swarms of chironomid midges! Everywhere I looked, there they were, clinging to the brickwork. This is one big buffet for spiders that I’ll have to check again later, but I didn’t see many today […]

Skatje is working hard on her thesis in computational linguistics, and might not appreciate a joke about how easy it is. It’s hard enough that I don’t even understand what she’s doing when she tries to explain it!

Like Minneapolis, the city of Mississauga is allowing mosques to broadcast the call to prayer during Ramadan, which seems reasonable, since 12% of the population is Muslim. The only problem is that some people are objecting, for bogus reasons. An open letter attached to three petitions, two of them hosted on Change.org, calls on Mississauga […]

Currently making the rounds: I was suspicious, though. It’s too good to be true. So I snooped about, and found the original on the ADL website. OK, now, really — who thought they needed to edit the original sign to make it less evil and more obviously stupid? That was a waste of effort. Just […]

Trivia fact: Edgar Rice Burroughs, in addition to his Tarzan and Mars books, also wrote a handful of pulp stories about Venus, which was called Amtor by the natives, and his intrepid hero, Carson Napier. They were a little different from the Mars series, where John Carter was teleported to Mars by some form of […]

Yikes. My social media are squirming with the maggoty indignation of cranks lit up by this pseudo-documentary, Plandemic, which is actually nothing but an overlong trailer that was live on YouTube and Facebook briefly, before it got shot down and banned for spreading misinformation. I’m not going to encourage anyone to watch it — I […]