Search | New Scientist

Tom Gauld ticks umpteen things off the 2022 to-do list

29 December 2021

Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon

Twisteddoodles: Welcome to the Centre for Human Research

29 December 2021

This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles

PICARD Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD.

The best sci-fi TV shows and movies to look forward to in 2022

29 December 2021

Star Trek, Star Wars and Avatar are all back in what will be a great year on screen for fans of space and other frontiers

Robot sitting on a bunch of books. Contains clipping path

Our pick of the best sci-fi and speculative fiction books for 2022

29 December 2021

The This by Adam Roberts, Mickey7 by Edward Ashton and Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders are just some of the treats we are looking forward to this year

This week’s new questions

29 December 2021

What caused the pictured red-only “rainbow”. And are human children and babies uniquely noisy compared with the offspring of other animals?

HKC9W5 Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine - August 23, 2015: Armed forces salute with guns during ceremony of raising Ukrainian national flag

Can bullets fired in the air cause injury when they return? (part 2)

29 December 2021

It is common in many countries for people to fire guns upwards in celebration, and sometimes the returning bullets can wreak havoc, say our readers

When does a theory become a fact and who decides?

29 December 2021

Can a theory ever become a fact? Our readers weigh in

Spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) baby or bub is cared for by Claudia Barton, volunteer wildlife carer at Tolga Bat Hospital, North Queensland, Australia October 2012

Why do we have five digits on each hand, and not some other number?

29 December 2021

The number of fingers and toes we have is thanks to our amphibian ancestors, but many animals have a different number, say our readers

SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM). Here the delta variant is shown budding (cyan dots) from an apoptotic Caco-2 human gut epithelial cell 24 hours after infection. SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant took over globally from the alpha variant in 2021. The delta variant has evolved to better replicate in its new human host allowing it to spread between people more efficiently. The coronaviruses take their name from their crown (corona) of surface proteins, which are used to attach and penetrate their host cells. As of mid-September 2021 226, 130, 821 cases and 4, 653, 230 deaths have been recorded world- wide. Magnification x 8000 at 10cm wide. Specimen courtesy of Greg Towers, UCL

2022 preview: What will the coronavirus do next?

29 December 2021

The coronavirus will continue to evolve and could trigger further waves of infections, requiring more vaccinations and boosters

2G9MFKY Munich, Germany. 27th July, 2021. A Google quantum processor

2022 preview: Quantum computers may finally become useful tools

29 December 2021

"Google and other research teams have proved that quantum computers can operate faster than a regu-lar machine, but in 2022 we might actually see them tackle useful problems