Don’t Forget The Time Scientists Grew ‘Dinosaur Legs’ on a Chicken

Until recently, one of the biggest myths in science was that all dinosaurs have been extinct for the past 65 million years. But thanks to new fossil discoveries that filled in our knowledge about avian dinosaurs, we now know that only some dinosaurs went extinct following an asteroid collision with Earth – others survived and gave … Read more

Hollywood Can Take On Science Denial; Don’t Look Up Is a Great Example

On a recent morning, in Lower Manhattan, 20 scientists, including me, gathered for a private screening of the new film Don’t Look Up, followed by lunch with the film’s director, Adam McKay. The film’s plot is simple. An astronomy graduate student, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), and her professor, Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), discover a new … Read more

How a real NASA patch anchors Netflix’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ in reality

“Talking about your office, the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, you’ve got the patch there. In fact, I was observing a little Latin phrase at the bottom, what does that say?” “‘Hic Servare Diem,’ which means ‘Here to save the day.’” That exchange, between a NASA commentator and a scientist in the agency’s planetary science division, … Read more

The Ursid meteor shower peaks tonight. Don’t expect to see many ‘shooting stars.’

According to the Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, there are 11 meteor showers that are considered to be the “principal” displays of the year. In order to make the list, a particular meteor shower must produce at least 10 meteors per hour at maximum.  As it turns out, within a span … Read more

Don’t Look Up review: the funniest climate change movie so far

By Rowan Hooper NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX The Netflix disaster-satire film Don’t Look Up is a thinly-veiled metaphor for humanity’s haphazard efforts to tackle climate change, told through the story of a giant comet that’s on a collision course with Earth. New Scientist podcast editor Rowan Hooper reviewed Don’t Look Up with the help of Emily Atkin, … Read more

AI reads boring terms and conditions documents so you don’t have to

By Chris Stokel-Walker Settle in for a lengthy read Anna Berkut Almost no one reads the long and complicated terms and conditions (T&C) agreements found on websites and apps, but now an artificial intelligence (AI) can pick out the important bits for you. These legal documents are famously impenetrable – a 2019 study of 500 … Read more

Don’t miss: The new science reshaping our relationship with cancer

Read Absynthe by Brendan Bellecourt is a delirious tale of altered realities set in a world where the first world war ushered in a technological utopia of automata and monorails, plus a serum that can give people telepathic abilities. Mark Waugh Visit Cancer Revolution at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, UK, explores the … Read more

‘Don’t Look Up’ delivers a punch in comet-themed climate change film satire (review)

It’s only four minutes into the new Netflix comet impact film “Don’t Look Up” when astrophysicist Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio, “Inception”; “Before the Flood”) makes his first mistake. Mindy is leading a team trying to figure out the position and pathway of the newly discovered object, “and that will check the distance between the comet … Read more

Leonardo DiCaprio: How comet-themed ‘Don’t Look Up’ shows climate crisis as an emergency

Leonardo DiCaprio’s longstanding passion for climate change, which even brought him to NASA a few years back, is now on screen in a new movie. The Oscar-winning actor (“The Revenant”, “Inception”) is the lead for the cast of “Don’t Look Up” (Netflix, Dec. 10), a dark satire about a deadly comet heading for Earth. Director … Read more