2025 was the year of online safety laws – but do they work? 19. December 2025 (12:00) New laws in the UK, Australia and France were brought in during 2025 with the aim of protecting children from harmful content online, but experts remain divided on whether they will achieve this goal(New Scientist)
High-achieving adults rarely began as child prodigies 19. December 2025 (12:00) It's easy to assume that the most talented adults among us were once gifted children, but it turns out that talent during childhood is no guide to later success(New Scientist)
Roman soldiers defending Hadrian’s Wall had intestinal parasites 19. December 2025 (01:00) Excavations of sewer drains at a Roman fort in northern England have revealed the presence of several parasites that can cause debilitating illness in humans(New Scientist)
Closure of US institute will do immense harm to climate research 18. December 2025 (18:52) The National Center for Atmospheric Research has played a leading role in providing data, modelling and supercomputing to researchers around the world – but the Trump administration is set to shut it down(New Scientist)
Sitting by a window may improve blood sugar levels for type 2 diabetes 18. December 2025 (17:00) Our cells follow 24-hour circadian rhythms that regulate our blood sugar levels and are heavily influenced by light exposure. Scientists have harnessed this to show that just sitting by a window improves blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes(New Scientist)
Strange lemon-shaped exoplanet defies the rules of planet formation 17. December 2025 (17:30) A distant world with carbon in its atmosphere and extraordinarily high temperatures is unlike any other planet we’ve seen, and it’s unclear how it could have formed(New Scientist)
Chronic fatigue syndrome seems to have a very strong genetic element 17. December 2025 (17:00) The largest study so far into the genetics of chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, has implicated 259 genes – six times more than those identified just four months ago(New Scientist)
Cosmology’s Great Debate began a century ago – and is still going 17. December 2025 (12:00) Our understanding of the true nature of the cosmos relies on measurements of its expansion, but cosmologists have been arguing back and forth about it for more than 100 years(New Scientist)
