Why we only recently discovered space is dark not bright 10. December 2025 (11:00) For centuries, Europeans thought that eternal daylight saturated the cosmos. The shift to a dark universe has had a profound psychological impact upon us(New Scientist)
Did ancient humans start farming so they could drink more beer? 10. December 2025 (11:00) New evidence suggests that alcohol was a surprisingly big motivator in our monumental transition from hunting and gathering to farming – but was beer really more important to us than bread?(New Scientist)
Dinosaurs like Diplodocus may have been as colourful as birds 10. December 2025 (01:01) Skin fossils from a sauropod dinosaur examined with an electron microscope feature structures called melanosomes, which are similar to those that create the bright colours in birds' feathers(New Scientist)
2025 was chock full of exciting discoveries in human evolution 09. December 2025 (19:00) From an incredible series of revelations about the ancient humans called Denisovans to surprising discoveries about tool making, this year has given us a clearer picture of how and why humans evolved to be so different from other primates(New Scientist)
The surprising longevity lessons from the world’s oldest animal 09. December 2025 (17:00) Scientists were amazed to discover a 507-year-old clam that was already 100 in Shakespeare’s day, but why did it live so long and what can we learn from it?(New Scientist)
Pompeii building site reveals how the Romans made concrete 09. December 2025 (17:00) Excavations of a workshop that was buried in Pompeii almost 2000 years ago have given archaeologists unique insights into Roman construction techniques and the longevity of the empire’s concrete(New Scientist)
The audacious quest to light up the sky with artificial auroras 09. December 2025 (14:00) How a Finnish physicist named Karl Lemström once became obsessed with recreating the aurora borealis from scratch – and may have ended up creating something even more intriguing(New Scientist)
We’ve finally cracked how to make truly random numbers 09. December 2025 (11:00) From machine learning to voting, the workings of the world demand randomisation, but true sources of randomness are surprisingly hard to find. Now quantum mechanics has supplied the answer(New Scientist)
2025 is the second hottest year since records began 09. December 2025 (04:00) Mean temperatures this year approached 1.5°C above the preindustrial average, making it the second hottest year after 2024(New Scientist)
