Table of contents for 3 January 2026 in New Scientist

A CONTROVERSIAL scheme will begin to reflect sunlight to Earth with satellites this year, so dark places can be temporarily lit for visibility or energy production. But astronomers are sceptical about the plan’s efficacy and possible scientific consequences. US company Reflect Orbital, which aims to provide “sunlight on demand”, intends to launch its first satellite early this year, beaming sunlight to 10 locations as part of an initial “World Tour”. The company then plans to launch thousands of satellites, equipped with mirrors spanning tens of metres, so that light can be reflected to Earth for “remote operations, defense, civil infrastructure, and energy generation”. By 2030, Reflect Orbital says it will have sufficient satellite coverage to beam 200 watts per square metre to solar farms on Earth, equivalent to levels of sunlight…

DESPITE providing nearly a fifth of US electricity generation, nuclear power in the country has stagnated for decades. Regulatory hurdles, public scepticism and cheaper energy sources led to plant closures, moratoriums and a lack of funding for novel nuclear technologies. But spiking electricity demand – driven largely by data centres – is spurring a nuclear revival, and the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program is fasttracking the testing of advanced reactor designs. Eleven companies are taking part, and the goal is for at least three of them to reach criticality – a state where a nuclear fission reaction becomes stable and self-sustaining – by 4 July. “It is deliberately a very ambitious deadline,” says Leslie Dewan, a nuclear engineer specialising in advanced reactor technologies. “One of the purposes of this…

Researchers Robert and Stephen Warren narrowed down the possible location of the giant Chinguetti meteorite. The man who originally found it said it took a 10-hour camel journey to reach, which the researchers say means it must be at least 10 km and no more than 50 km from the town where he started. It must also now be hidden by dunes at least 30 metres deep. This led the researchers to propose two unsearched areas of dunes (outlined in red) where the treasure could be.…

Cryptic crossword #178 Set by Rasa Scribble zone Quick crossword next week ACROSS 1 Before reprimand, snatch back hospital chart (3,5) 5 Fuzzy logic avoiding current overload (4) 9 Rate geometrical art encountered in retro exhibition (5) 10 Plots effect size after second science class (7) 11 Ahead of time, clean crude surgical instrument (6) 12 Antigua now protects stuff in caves (5) 14 Apologetic guards addressing having dropped sun for planetarium model (6) 16 Make over a thousand floorboards, one day? (3,3) 19 Loudly appreciate frugal type (5) 21 Cheese tools in a container at school (6) 24 Cut out reversed part of a table formatting mark (7) 25 Rhenium and calcium, on reflection, might ultimately form new substances (5) 26 Carries out woodland females (4) 27 Force tip…

THE blockbuster weight-loss drug semaglutide and its rivals promise to help reverse the global obesity epidemic – if only more of the people who would benefit from these treatments could afford them. But this year could see welcome steps in that direction. For years, weight-loss drugs were in short supply, but by the end of 2024, manufacturers had caught up with the huge demand. Yet medicines such as semaglutide (sold as Wegovy or Ozempic) remain very expensive, typically costing several thousand dollars for a year’s supply. That price tag puts them beyond the reach of most of the more than 1 billion people around the world who have obesity. Only 3 per cent of eligible people in the US are on weight-loss drugs, and less than 1 per cent elsewhere,…

UNTIL now, countries lagging behind others in cutting carbon emissions haven’t faced any downsides, apart from higher energy costs. All international climate agreements are effectively voluntary. But as of 1 January, the European Union is charging a carbon tariff on imported goods that penalises climate laggards – the first to be introduced anywhere in the world. Needless to say, the nations that will be forced to pay these carbon taxes aren’t happy about it. Tensions were high in the lead-up to the start of the EU’s carbon border tariff, or what it calls a carbon border adjustment mechanism. The trade disputes are likely to continue, but the tax is here to stay – and is the first of many, says Ellie Belton at climate think tank E3G. “I think we…

THE mysteries of two neighbouring planets may soon start to be unravelled, with the launch of a spacecraft that will eventually bring a chunk of a Martian moon to Earth and the descent of another craft into Mercury’s orbit. Understanding the origins of Mars’s moons Phobos and Deimos, and how they came to be orbiting the planet, can hopefully tell us a bit about the evolution of Mars in general and its history, says Emelia Branagan-Harris at the Natural History Museum in London. There are two competing hypotheses for how these moons came to orbit Mars: the Red Planet could have captured them as a pair of asteroids, which were either conjoined and later separated or closely orbited each other, or they could have been produced from an asteroid smashing…

Smartphones and watches, with their constant flurry of updates and notifications, seem like the antithesis of a calm, stress-free existence. But for anyone keen to find their own deep rest state, they do have their uses. One marker of stress regulation that comes as standard in most smart watches is heart rate variability (HRV) – a measure of the tiny variations of the time between successive heartbeats that is used as a marker of overall physiological stress, and of how efficiently the body is managing its resources. Different devices use slightly different measures, and what counts as healthy varies by age, but a higher HRV is generally considered healthier. An HRV below 25 millisends (ms), for example, has been linked to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and depression. A…

Water world If all the water on Earth’s surface and in the air were put into a ball, how large would the sphere be? Could it exist in space by itself? Garry Trethewey Leigh Creek, South Australia The answer is: a bit under 1400 kilometres in diameter, and no. But it’s a lovely exercise in googling and back-of-the-envelope calculations. First, let’s see how much water there is in oceans. The US Bureau of Reclamation says 1.37 billion cubic kilometres. And how much water is there in the atmosphere? About 13,000km3. The oceans hold over 100,000 times as much water as the atmosphere, so atmospheric water is negligible. Now, lets calculate the size of the sphere that would fit 1.37 billion km3. First, we need to calculate the size of the…

IN FEBRUARY 2026, for the first time in decades, there will be no active treaty limiting the size of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Experts are divided on whether the New START treaty genuinely made the world safer, but there is far more agreement on one thing: a replacement is unlikely. The US and Russia first agreed to place limits on their nuclear weapons and allow each to inspect the other’s stockpiles with the START I treaty in 1991, and this was succeeded by New START in 2011. In 2021, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to extend the treaty by five years. It is now due to expire on 5 February and talks on a replacement have faltered. Tension between Russia and the US had already been ratcheting…

TURNING seawater into drinking water is so costly and energy-intensive that it is untenable in most parts of the world, but a Norwegian company is trialling a new approach that could change that. Flocean will launch the world’s first commercial-scale subsea desalination plant this year, and says its system will dramatically cut the cost and energy consumption of the process. Global demand for water is going up, driven by population growth, climate change and industrial uses like data centres and manufacturing. Meanwhile, fresh water is becoming less abundant due to droughts, deforestation and over-irrigation. Land-based desalination currently produces about 1 per cent of the world’s fresh water supply, with over 300 million people relying on this source for their daily water needs. The biggest plants are in the Middle East,…

FOR me, this year is going to be all about self-care via the stars. It has been 20 years since I first felt palpable envy at someone being able to navigate the night sky. In 2006, I was at a conference in La Jolla, California, reporting for New Scientist. Among the delegates was astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson. One evening, as we were all having an al fresco dinner, he took out a laser pointer and gave us a tour of the visible constellations. I was mesmerised, and impressed by the ease with which Tyson wandered through the heavens. I made myself a promise: when I got home, I was going to become a stargazer. It didn’t happen. I still haven’t learned to spot much beyond Orion and the Plough,…

LOTS of science books will be published over the course of the coming year – tonnes, in fact. After spending last month wading through the books and publisher catalogues that came into our offices, I have decided on the science books that I am most excited about, arranged in categories so it is easy to find what you love throughout the year. Of course, if you are a bit of an omnivore like me, you could end the year an expert in everything from spotting psychopaths to very, very huge numbers. Space Let’s start at a grand scale, with environmental historian Dagomar Degroot’s Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean. He considers how the solar system shaped humanity, whether that’s Martian dust storms sparking stories about aliens, or comet impacts on Jupiter…

IT ALL started with an overheard conversation between some camel herders. The year was 1916, and Gaston Ripert, a French army captain, had been injured and sent to recover in the small town of Chinguetti in Mauritania. It was a lonely, dusty place on the edge of the Sahara. So when Ripert heard local people talk of a colossal block of iron out in the undulating expanse of dunes, he was intrigued. They referred to it as the “iron of God”. He persuaded one man to guide him to this fabled iron and what followed has passed into legend. After an arduous overnight camel ride, Ripert arrived at what appeared to be an enormous metal edifice – some 100 metres wide in his estimation – partly buried in the dunes,…

YOU are holding your newborn in your arms and gazing into their beautiful eyes; you are waiting in an airport for a family member to return from a year-long trip and suddenly see them walking towards you; or you are sitting in a sports stadium as your team holds its trophy after years of struggle. In each case, you feel a profound sense of connection swell up inside you, your skin breaks out in goosebumps and your eyes fill with tears. Sound familiar? You may not know the term, but that feeling is “kama muta”, a newly named emotion that is of increasing interest to psychologists. It marks some of the most important moments in our relationships with our family, friends and the wider community. By consciously seeking out opportunities…