Search | New Scientist

Quick crossword #95: Non-reproductive part of a flower (8)

4 November 2021

Challenge your brain by solving New Scientist's weekly crosswords on your mobile, tablet or desktop

Alzheimer's disease. Series of coloured computed tomography (CT) scans of an axial section through the head of a 74-year-old patient with Alzheimer's disease. The front of the brain (brown) is at the top. Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease and a common cause of dementia in the elderly. It causes brain atrophy (decrease in size), shown here by the enlarged ventricle cavities (white, at centre of brain) and the widened pale blue regions. The brain shrinkage caused by Alzheimer's disease leads to memory loss, confusion, personality changes and ultimately death. The cause of Alzheimer's disease is not known and there is no cure.

Treating Alzheimer's as having many causes may help us beat it

3 November 2021

We have focused on the same suspected cause of Alzheimer's for too long. Thinking of it as resulting from multiple overlapping risk factors gives us an opportunity to fight back

2AAJ6F5 Gardener picking ripe Crimson Crush tomatoes in late summer in greenhouse of organic vegetable garden

Why do tomatoes get hit by blight and how can you stop it?

3 November 2021

Home-grown tomato plants can get ravaged by blight, but there are easy steps you can take to prevent it, says Clare Wilson

Why Alzheimer’s is not a single disease – and why that matters

3 November 2021

Despite decades of research, there’s no consensus on what causes Alzheimer’s. But a new way of thinking is transforming how we study the condition, and could finally deliver effective treatments

Ice cream food truck, isolated vector van, cartoon car for street food icecream desserts selling. Automobile cafe or restaurant on wheels with ice cream assortment, loudspeaker on rood and chalkboard

Puzzle #138: Who is right about this ice cream mystery?

3 November 2021

Can you solve this week’s fiendish puzzle Ice cream coincidence? Plus the answer to puzzle #137

Do you speak elephant? With this new dictionary you will

3 November 2021

An ambitious directory of elephant behaviours and vocalisations offers amazing insights into their minds and culture – and could help save these magnificent beasts from extinction

Tractor spraying pesticides on soybean field with sprayer at spring; Shutterstock ID 692043769; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Is it true that use of synthetic fertiliser is increasing everywhere?

3 November 2021

Frequent reports decrying our ever-growing use of synthetic fertilisers don’t reflect reality and fail to see the bigger picture, writes James Wong

At the newly opened Toddler Lab at Birkbeck, University of London, a new technique for imaging the brain using infrared light means we are starting to understand how young children learn to plan complex goals. The lab utilises functional near-infrared spectroscopy or fNIRS and motion capture gloves to measure how children learn to plan and achieve goals. Pictured: Finn

A new kind of brain scan is letting us understand how toddlers think

3 November 2021

Technological advances mean that we can finally tackle an age-old question: what's going on in the minds of children?

Red feathers determine which common waxbill is the boss

3 November 2021

For a songbird called the common waxbill, dominance isn't governed by body size, intelligence, or even temperament, but by the intensity of the colours in their chest feathers

The quantum experiment that could prove reality doesn't exist

3 November 2021

We like to think that things are there even when we aren't looking at them. But that belief might soon be overturned thanks to a new test designed to tell us if quantum weirdness persists in macroscopic objects