Emily Smith

Space 26 June 2019 ▲ Raspberry Pi The micro-computer is now powerful enough to replace your home desktop, assuming you still actually have one. ▲ Nearby worlds Two Earth-like planets have been spotted just 12.5 light years from here. A quirk of geometry means any astronomers there could also see Earth, so wave hello! ▼ Aliens Or not.…

Health 26 June 2019 IVF involves fertilising an egg in the labJochen Tack / Alamy Stock Photo By Clare WilsonWomen who attempt IVF several times before they get pregnant are at higher risk of having pregnancy complications involving their placenta. This might be because the woman’s uterus had an undiagnosed health problem all along that…

Digital doctors are already in use, but there are big questions about how they work. Are we ready for the rise of AI healthcare? Technology 26 June 2019 AIs can be trained to look for problems in MRI scansbaranozdemir/Getty By Michael Le PageARTIFICIALLY intelligent doctors are here. Thousands of people in the US and Europe…

Donna Lu investigates the murky world of security tech. She finds cameras packed with artificial intelligence, fingerprint scanners and a live owl Technology 26 June 2019 Cameras equipped with AI can recognise faces in a crowdDavid McNew/AFP/Getty By Donna LuI AM staring into the future of security… and it thinks I’m under 15 years old.…

Health 26 June 2019 Central Press/GettyBy Adam Vaughan The number of early deaths in the UK linked to breathing tiny particles of soot has more than halved in four decades because of action to cut air pollution, but researchers are warning they still pose a substantial burden on public health. The public’s exposure to major…

Growing low-nicotine tobacco could help people stop smokingDescription:zakir hossain chowdhury/Barcroft Media via Getty By Michael Le PageA gene-edited tobacco plant created using the CRISPR technique has the lowest ever amount of nicotine. It could boost efforts to reduce nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels, as the US plans to do. Felix Stehle and Julia Schachtsiek at the Technical…

Health 25 June 2019 Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg via Getty By New Scientist Staff and Press Association Air pollution seems to negatively affect an important measure of female fertility. Though the biggest contributing factor was a woman’s age, daily exposure to high levels of pollution was also associated with a decline in potential fertility. The findings are…

A satellite collar being fitted to an Arctic foxElise Strømseng By Adam PopescuAn Arctic fox travelled 4415 kilometres over sea ice and glaciers last year during a 76-day polar marathon. Biologists documented the journey, which began on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, and ended on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s remote Nunavut Territory.…

A crater left by a second world war bomb that exploded in Germany this weekBORIS ROESSLER/AFP/Getty The second world war may be long over, but its weapons remain deadly. This huge crater in a field near the town of Limburg, Germany was created when a bomb exploded without warning during the early hours of 23…

Health 25 June 2019 Success rates for two fertility treatments have peakedVioleta Stoimenova/Getty By Clare WilsonThe success rates for two common fertility treatments have peaked, with only one in four attempts resulting in pregnancy. The success rate for IVF and a similar technique called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) have been around this level for about…