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

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

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

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

Of course, the first comment on the comic is this BS: Nobody gets to be a billionaire without creating something that millions, even billions, of people want and pay for. If you don’t like billionaires, then trying living your life without everything they’ve made possible for you. Reassuringly, that commenter will never be a billionaire, […]

Milo Yawannapissoff and Michelle Malkin have been collaborating, and the results are even more awful than you can probably imagine. They decided to work together to create an “America First” reading list for their followers. Just from their choice of subject you can tell it’s going to be a collection of racists’ greatest hits. Milo […]

“Venezuela!” is the reflexive argument of the right-wingers against socialism, so it’s not surprising that a cocky gang of American thugs would decide they could just swagger in and topple the Venezuelan government — 62 stupid mercenaries against a nation of 28 million people. They were so arrogant that the head of the mercenary organization […]

This story is a bit on the nose. Hello, Peter Ludlow here, CEO of InGen, the company behind the wildly successful dinosaur-themed amusement park, Jurassic Park. As you’re all aware, after an unprecedented storm hit the park, we lost power and the velociraptors escaped their enclosure and killed hundreds of park visitors, prompting a two-month […]