Comment
What is life? A provocative new book sets out to redefine it
Melanie Challenger's Alive aims to describe the living world very differently 鈥� by insisting on agency and purpose everywhere. Michael Marshall explores
Culture
Environment
Prize-winning image highlights precarious position of mangrove forests
Regulars
Comment
The best new popular science books of August 2026
Culture
Life
Plankton get a close-up in these stunning photographs
Regulars
Comment
Why Schr枚dinger’s 1944 classic What Is Life? still feels prescient
Culture
Comment
The best new popular science books of July 2026
Culture
Life
Has the answer to life’s origins been hiding in our cells all along?
Features
Life
New Scientist recommends Togetherness, a radical new view of life
Culture
Life
Weird and wonderful fungi should be so much more than sci-fi villains
Comment
Space
Asteroid Bennu carries all the ingredients for life as we know it
We knew from prior analyses that a distant asteroid sampled in 2020 carried all but one of the molecules needed to kick-start life, and researchers have just found the missing ingredient: sugar
News
Physics
We may need a fourth law of thermodynamics for living systems
News
Life
Moss spores survive and germinate after 283-day ‘space walk’
News
Life
Earth’s extraordinary deep biosphere is our next great frontier
Culture
Life
How life thrives in one of the most hostile environments on Earth
News