The UK government has refused to say how many covid-19 contact tracers it has employed, with less than three weeks to go until its target of recruiting 18,000 of them by mid-May

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

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

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

Weird blasts of radio waves from space called fast radio bursts have been baffling astronomers since they were discovered, but after finding one in our galaxy we may finally know what creates them

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

We’ve found a 200-metre cliff in Mars's Hellas basin, the first evidence of a river that flowed on the planet for more than 100,000 years

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

Once the coronavirus pandemic is over, we must work out how to stop the spread of poor information that has helped make a bad situation that much worse

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?

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

A study of brain cells in a dish adds to growing evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be caused by herpes viruses, but antiviral treatment may help stop it

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

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

Mercury is much denser than the other rocky planets in the solar system, and that may be because a collision vaporised its surface and the debris was blown away by the sun

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

Имперский колледж Лондона опубликовал фотоэссе о том, как исследователи из департамента инфекционных болезней разрабатывают вакцину от COVID-19. Вот самые важные факты: Ученые разработали вакцину-кандидата за 14 дней после того, как получили расшифрованный геном вируса из Китая. Самоамплифицирующаяся РНК-вакцина, по сути, вводит новый генетический код в организм, подсказывая ему, как создать белок, который вызывает защитный иммунный […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]