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Cryptic crossword #74: Animal backbone used in shade of black dye (9)

6 January 2022

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


Tom Gauld explores the increasingly bizarre signs of the times

Tom Gauld explores the increasingly bizarre signs of the times

5 January 2022

Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon


Twisteddoodles: A tongue-in-cheek guide to chemical labelling

Twisteddoodles: A tongue-in-cheek guide to chemical labelling

5 January 2022

This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles


At your fingertips: The nail art that opens doors to the metaverse

At your fingertips: The nail art that opens doors to the metaverse

5 January 2022

Why the inventor of a futuristic beauty product was banned from Instagram, plus affirming birds’ existence and falling toast, in Feedback’s weekly round-up


KARAWANG, WEST JAVA, INDONESIA, JAN-18 : An employee shows newly-launched Rupiah banknotes which are illuminated by the ultraviolet in Indonesian Money Printing Public Company (Peruri), Karawang, West Java On January 18, 2017. There are elements of security that can readily be known to the public and there will only be known specialist. (Photo by Dasril Roszandi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

This week’s new questions

5 January 2022

What makes certain materials glow under UV light, and not others? And why do our own farts smell OK, whereas those of other people’s smell awful?


Do magnets have any effects on human cells? (part 2)

Do magnets have any effects on human cells? (part 2)

5 January 2022

Living creatures can be levitated by magnetic fields, but this doesn’t mean that our cells are affected by them


J6125R 3D illustration. Stylized image of a brain inside a liquid with air bubbles around.

If my brain atoms were replaced with identical ones, am I still me?

5 January 2022

Yes and no say our readers – evoking wooden ships, the multiverse and dinosaurs to address a question that has vexed philosophers for centuries


A spider has been caught in a glass tea cup

Do house spiders released outside survive, or navigate back?

5 January 2022

The fate of spiders caught in the home and released some distance away depends on the species - and the temperature


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Puzzle #149: Only Ferris Caroselli could design this mathematical ride

5 January 2022

Can you solve this week’s fairground puzzle "All in a spin"? Plus the answer to puzzle #148


Brassica oleracea - Early purple sprouting broccoli covered in frost in a vegetable garden

Winter is purple sprouting broccoli's time to shine

5 January 2022

The brassica family boasts a dizzying variety of forms, but purple sprouting broccoli may be the best of them all, says Clare Wilson


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