Food tastes satisfying thanks to the amino acid glutamate, which stimulates the umami taste. Sam Wong explains how to boost it in your recipes

Are we ready for real-life love potions? Book Love is the Drug explains how pills may affect everything from falling deeper in love to breaking up

Concerns about adversaries hacking democracy abound, but it’s sheer incompetence we should really be worried about, writes Annalee Newitz

When natural global warming raised seas by 120 metres starting around 18,000 years ago, people tried to protect themselves by building walls or rolling fiery boulders into the sea

An analysis of the topics that cause arguments between newly-wed heterosexual couples puts a lack of affection at the top of the list, with little concern about who sleeps on which side of the bed

Smiling and other facial expressions aren't displays of feelings that transcend cultures but turn out to be full of hidden meaning

Down is a sci-fi podcast about a crewed mission into a mysterious Antarctic hole that has opened up as a result of climate change, what will the crew find?

A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in a cave in Iraq shows signs of having been deliberately buried – more evidence our cousin species behaved a little like we do

This week, watch Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This, catch up with positive stories about how our brains age, and listen as a podcast reveals the built world

Many classic psychology experiments have found humans to be pretty gullible. But book Not Born Yesterday argues that such a trait runs against the logic of natural selection

The Good Place, a sitcom on Netflix about an afterlife with characters who represent me at my worst – and best – is over, but I can’t stop rewatching the show, says Chelsea Whyte

Elisabeth Bik is on a mission to detect duplicate images in scientific papers, exposing either genuine mistakes or signs of fraud. But her work isn't always appreciated, she says

As recently as 110 years ago, Aboriginal Australians used dingoes to help hunt kangaroos even though the canines are feral and difficult to train

Just how humans evolved the stiff feet that allow us to walk and run has been something of a mystery, but now researchers say a bony arch structure is the key

Encouraging the growth of benign bacteria is a tasty way to preserve vegetables, such as with this easy kimchi recipe, says Sam Wong

This week, listen as Reply All goes down the internet rabbit hole, watch the second series of Netflix's Altered Carbon, and ponder what fossils our culture will leave for the far future

Everything from genetic tests to immigration numbers is full of shaky statistics. David Spiegelhalter's new podcast helps separate the factual from the flaky

Julia Ebner infiltrated the hidden forums that extremists use. Her experiences lay bare how they hijack social media and video games to spread hate – and how to beat them

This week, watch as Westworld breaks out of the park and into LA, discover why vision is so important and listen as a drama exploits the weirdness of sound

The second season of podcast The Dream debunks much of the wellness industry, but creating empathy for the people caught up in it is where the show shines

After finding out she was autistic, Siena Castellon sparked a global school movement that celebrates neurodiversity, which now includes nearly half a million students

An analysis of a classic Monty Python sketch suggests the Minister of Silly Walks has a walking style 6.7 times more variable, or silly, than normal walking

By understanding garlic's chemistry we can amp up its pungency in a fiery garlic sauce or tame it through gentle cooking to make mellow garlic confit, says Sam Wong

We thought hominins evolved to run around 2 million years ago – but a study of the famous Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, suggests she could run too

TikTok's rise has been meteoric. With more than 3 million people a day now downloading the app, its success is down to more than just luck

As the coronavirus outbreak continues, why do some people stockpile and others shrug? The psychology of uncertainty explains what's going on, says Rachel McCloy

The mysterious Liangzhu civilisation was a neolithic "Venice of the East", rivalling ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia with its engineering marvels

Ancient humans in Africa mixed far more than we thought, according to new findings revealed by sequencing the genomes of a diverse group of people from across the world

Shards of pottery probably used for transporting food suggest a mountain site in the Czech Republic may have been a nature retreat for Iron Age religious hermits

Kate Darling researches human-robot interaction. She explains why we are prone to forming emotional connections with robots and what we can learn from our relationships with pets and other animals

Many people feel intimidated by the prospect of making pastry, says Sam Wong, but a little understanding can go a long way to successfully making this beautiful rhubarb tart

Your immune system ages too, weakening as you get older and making you more susceptible to infections. Fortunately, we are discovering plenty of things you can do to turn back the clock and stay healthy

Always forgetting birthdays? Terrible at staying in touch? New tech promises to turn you into the best buddy ever. We put it to the test

This week, make your own ending to a thriller set in a locked-down lab, join a nature walk to track Europe’s spring and listen to the trends shaping our future

Pandemics of the past can teach us about the current one, says John Troyer, who studies how we use technology to alter the experience of death

Forget the simple out-of-Africa idea of how humans evolved. A huge array of fossils and genome studies has completely rewritten the story of how we came into being.

A prehistoric human species that lived in Europe 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago is emerging as a contender to be our last common ancestor with Neanderthals

Is our love affair with AI really about building a new kind of deity to meet human needs no amount of rationality can fill? Max Barry's disturbing novel Providence lays out the case, says Sally Adee

The covid-19 pandemic has many of us stuck at home. The result could completely reshape how we use the internet, writes Annalee Newitz

A piece of string found in a cave in France is the oldest ever discovered and shows that Neanderthals knew how to twist fibres together to make cords

They Are Already Here: UFO culture and why we see saucers by Sarah Scoles tries to find out what's so appealing about hunting UFOs

In Vivarium, a young couple in need of a starter home meet an estate agent who is very definitely not what he seems, and nor is the estate he shows them, finds Simon Ings

Tom Gauld’s science cartoons appear weekly in New Scientist. He explains how he gets his ideas as his latest collection, Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, hits the shelves

Skeletal markings show that some women who lived on the Mongolian steppe 1850 years ago appear to have been warriors, perhaps providing inspiration for the famous Ballad of Mulan

Watch Netflix's Absurd Planet explore weird animals, discover the powerful chemical industry and create dance using a choreographer’s motion-capture moves

N. K. Jemisin's latest book sees New York itself come alive to fight off aliens in the first part of a new trilogy with ethnicity at its heart

Thinking of the brain as a machine may be hampering our progress in understanding how it works, says The Idea of the Brain: A history by Matthew Cobb

There's been a surge in people wanting to grow fruit and vegetables, but the path to self-sufficiency isn't as easy as some may have you think, writes James Wong

Building muscle reduces the risk of cancer and stroke, boosts brainpower, burns through calories and more – it might even be better for you than cardio

Coronavirus will overshadow Earth Day's golden anniversary, but the movement's successes are worth celebrating, says Gary Paul Nabhan