The green mummified remains of a teenager buried in Italy 200 to 400 years ago have given us new insights into the preservative properties of copper

How do we know the speed of light – and why does it have a speed limit at all? Leah Crane explores the history of one of the most important numbers in the universe

All over the world people are ageing more rapidly and succumbing to diseases that typically affected the elderly. But there are ways to turn back the clock on your biological age

Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator

Researchers warn that the alga Karenia cristata, which has killed around a million animals in Australian waters in one of the biggest algal blooms ever seen, could harm marine life elsewhere

Jacob, an 11-year-old lion, has defied expectations by surviving for years after losing a leg – now we know his success is down to an innovative hunting strategy

The very first generation of stars, called Population III stars, are mostly expected to be too distant to see directly – but astronomers may have found some for the very first time

Ochre artefacts found in Crimea show signs of having been used for drawing, adding to evidence that Neanderthals used pigments in symbolic ways

Standard techniques for removing kidney stones often require repeated surgery, but a magnetic gel seems to make the process more efficient

In Ed Sayers's breathtaking documentary, a global community of film-makers capture the wildlife in their local areas. It's a bold departure from the glossy perspective of traditional nature documentaries, says Simon Ings

A comprehensive new map of Roman roads has boosted the known size of the empire’s land transport network by almost 60 per cent – and it is available for anyone to explore online.

The battle to save the magnificent but endangered Amur tiger detailed in Jonathan Slaght's Tigers Between Empires is an inspiring look at what collaboration across borders can achieve, finds Adam Weymouth

Combining a quantum-inspired algorithm and quantum information processing technologies could enable researchers to measure masses of cosmic objects that bend light almost imperceptibly

Orcas have devised a clever trick to gang up on great white sharks and eat their livers, which has been captured on video for the first time.

Lise Barnéoud's Hidden Guests shows how this fascinating new field brings with it profound implications for medicine, and even what it means to be human, finds Helen Thomson

Can sea slugs form abstract thoughts? Do we dare to see any "purpose" in evolution? Is the subjective just a complicated form of the objective? Nikolay Kukushkin's One Hand Clapping is a bold voyage around the mysteries of the human mind, finds Thomas Lewton

Biochemical evidence suggests Norse people settled in Iceland almost 70 years before the accepted arrival date of the 870s, and didn't chop down the island's forests

We now have only the second high-quality genome from an ancient Denisovan human, which reveals there were more populations of this species than we thought

COP's negotiations this month will focus on money for climate change adaptation. While more money is essential, even a big increase won't be enough on its own and we need to face up to this, warns Susannah Fisher

Feedback discovers a robot that can mimic Turkish ice cream vendors, who are known for playing tricks on their customers. Researchers concluded that customers, perhaps predictably, don't trust it

Neurologically, the flexibility of the future promised by liberal democracy can be a challenge because it brings with it uncertainty. But there are solutions, say Florence Gaub and Liya Yu

A planet is about to be destroyed by the collapse of a binary star system in Slow Gods, Claire North’s first venture into classic science fiction. Read it! says Emily H. Wilson

In this week’s issue: Why our bodies are ageing faster than ever - and how to hit the brakes. Grab a copy in shops now or download our app for digital editions.⁠ www.newscientist.com/issue/3568/

Grace Chan, author of Every Version of You, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, explores the philosophical implications of the choices her characters make

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

It took a long time for zero to be recognised as a number at all, let alone one of the most powerful ones – but now it’s clear that every number is made up of zeroes, says Jacob Aron

The ancient trick of grafting one plant onto another could find a very modern use – enabling gene editing of plants that are very difficult or impossible to edit by other means.

Getting covid-19 for the first time slightly increased the risk of heart inflammation, blood clots and bleeding disorders among children, whereas being vaccinated against the virus was much safer and sometimes protective

In this passage from the opening of Grace Chan’s sci-fi novel, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to her protagonists as they spend time in a virtual utopia which is becoming increasingly tempting in a dying world

Hektoria glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula retreated 25 kilometres in just 15 months. Its rapid melt could have implications for other glaciers and the rate of sea level rise

There has never been so many satellites in orbit, and their growing number is starting to reveal previously overlooked threats from solar storms

The uncertainty inherent to quantum mechanics has long left physicists wondering whether the observations we make on the quantum level reflect reality - a new test suggests they do

Anthropologist Christopher Bae has recently suggested we add two new species of ancient human to our family tree. The plans break the conventions for how species should be named – but Bae argues the rules themselves are flawed

The US government's decision to stop supporting a telescope facility that would have given us unprecedented insight into the early universe is calamitous, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

It is widely accepted that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, but now researchers say our measurements of the mysterious force driving that may be wrong and that the universe began to slow 1.5 billion years ago – but other scientists disagree

If we admit that quantum numbers are the true essence of reality – not particles, space or time – then a surprising and beautiful new vision of reality opens up to us

We're starting to understand how genetics influences our risk of polycystic ovary syndrome, which could help us better treat the common condition.

There is nothing stopping the wealthiest people from attempting to alter the world's atmosphere – this must not be allowed to happen

The energy used by AI is growing rapidly, so some researchers are looking at new ways of doing computing that are more efficient.

From Claire North’s new novel Slow Gods to a 10th anniversary edition of a brilliant Adrian Tchaikovsky book, there’s lots to watch out for in November’s science fiction

Alzheimer's-related cognitive decline could be slowed by taking as few as 3000 steps a day, possibly due to the effects of regular exercise on brain health

The New Scientist Book Club has various issues with Masud Husain's prize-winning popular science book about neurology

When it comes to boosting mental health and even improving performance, team sports and group exercise come out on top, finds Grace Wade

A mathematical model suggests that when a pair of black holes gets quantum entangled, this can give rise to a lumpy space-time tunnel between them

Using the Helios-1 quantum computer, researchers have used a record-breaking number of error-proof qubits to run the first and biggest quantum simulation of a model for perfect conductivity

All over the world people are ageing more rapidly and succumbing to diseases that typically affected the elderly. But there are ways to turn back the clock on your biological age

Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator

Expectations are low for the UN climate conference in Belém, Brazil, but the host’s pragmatic approach could help make progress on implementation.

The very first generation of stars, called Population III stars, are mostly expected to be too distant to see directly – but astronomers may have found some for the very first time

Ochre artefacts found in Crimea show signs of having been used for drawing, adding to evidence that Neanderthals used pigments in symbolic ways