Meet NASA’s NEO Surveyor, the space telescope identifying hazardous asteroids and comets within 48 million kilometres of Earth’s orbit

A new way to store numbers in computers can dynamically prioritise accuracy or range, depending on need, allowing software to quickly switch between very large and small numbers

A 6000-kilogram spacecraft will embark on a six-year journey to Jupiter to explore whether its icy moon Europa has the conditions to support life

SpaceX claims the fifth test flight of its Starship rocket will happen “within days”, but the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet approved the launch

Autonomous taxis are already operating on US streets, while Elon Musk has spent years promising a self-driving car and failing to deliver. The newly announced Tesla Cybercab is unlikely to change that

The UK government's decision to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius surprisingly threatens the extinction of millions of website addresses ending in ".io", and no one is quite sure what will happen next

The ion tail of C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) could appear as a blue streak across the northern hemisphere sky during October, in a rare event thought to happen only every few decades

Two of the three science Nobel prizes in 2024 have been won by people working in AI, but does this mean that AI models are now vital for science?

An Egg

A science teacher told his after school class, "Whoever can get this egg into this smaller glass bottle will win no homework for a week! The rules are: the egg has to go into the bottle in one piece, and you can't break the bottle. You can also use anything in the science lab. So, do we have any volunteers?"

A boy raised his hand and the teacher pointed at him. The boy took the egg and looked around the science lab for the things he could use. He saw some writing paper, a pack of matches, some vinegar, a sink, and the glass bottle. By the end of the after school class, the boy had gotten the egg into the smaller bottle.

How did he do it?


Note that, without doing anything to the egg, the egg can't fit into the bottle.


Check Braingle.com for the answer.

My first sight of Saturn through a telescope inspired my love of space. Dig out your telescopes or visit your local astronomy club, and you may be lucky enough to spot our sixth planet's stunning thick band of rings, says Leah Crane

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

Our Future Chronicles column explores an imagined history of inventions and developments yet to come. We visit 2032 and meet artificial animals that love their owners, without the carbon footprint of biological pets. Rowan Hooper explains how it happened

New technologies will radically change the experience of living with and caring for someone with Alzheimer's, says Professor Fiona Carragher, chief policy and research officer at Alzheimer's Society, UK

Increased airway NK cells, altered circulating NK cell immunophenotype, and cytotoxic dysfunction are associated with severe pediatric RSV infection.

Reversible attention deficits after early adversity are mediated by sleep across species.

Multispecific antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 increase pseudovirus neutralization breadth and potency and inhibit immune escape in vitro.

Mitochondrial creatine kinase 2 is decreased in type 2 diabetes, which impairs skeletal muscle mitochondrial function.

Unraveling the cancer-stroma interactome in myelofibrosis reveals galectin-1 as an actionable target.

What You Need

What, when you need it you throw it away,
but when you don't need it you take it back?


Check Braingle.com for the answer.

It is thought that humans can only maintain relationships with around 150 people, a figure known as Dunbar's number, but it seems that AI models can outstrip this and reach consensus in far bigger groups