New Scientist International Edition

NS Live Space weather Hear planetary scientist Suzie Imber discuss how the sun’s activity can drive auroras on Earth and the other planets in our solar system, and find out why 2025 will bring an increased probability of bright auroras and other space weather effects on Earth. Visit New Scientist Live on 13 October at London’s ExCeL Centre or watch online. newscientist.com/nslmag Tour The science of the Renaissance: Italy Encounter the great scientific minds and discoveries of the Renaissance, from Filippo Brunelleschi and Sandro Botticelli to polymaths like Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei. Join art historian Jeremy Boudreau as you explore the beautiful cities of Florence, Pisa and Bologna. This six-day tour begins on 4 November and costs £2479. newscientist.com/tours Podcast CultureLab Hydrophones – microphones designed to capture underwater audio – are helping scientists unravel hidden soundscapes. In this…

Dear reader, This time of year is a special one for the New Scientist team as we prepare for our annual extravaganza, New Scientist Live, which takes place in just three weeks’ time, on 12 and 13 October. If you haven’t been before, you can expect a weekend full of incredible talks about cutting-edge science and groundbreaking ideas, a show floor packed with live demonstrations and hands-on activities – and I’m told this year there will be dinosaurs, too. We modestly call it the world’s greatest festival of ideas and discoveries. Last year, I hosted the mind and body stage and I can honestly say the speakers were phenomenal – I still think about their talks to this day. This time round I’m looking forward to hearing regular New Scientist contributor David…

IF YOU watched the live video of billionaire Jason Isaacman popping his head out of a SpaceX spacecraft (see page 9), your first thought probably wasn’t “who gets sued if something goes wrong?” – but as private spaceflight grows, questions like these must be addressed. International space law is a patchwork of treaties dating back to the space race, most importantly the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. One key tenet of this is that only states can be responsible for activity in space, even that of “non-governmental entities” like SpaceX. Because Isaacman and his crew launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, that means the buck stops with the US government. But the US government has found ways to pass that buck. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has strict rules…

A REVOLUTION in weather forecasting could soon see warnings of forthcoming heatwaves, storms or other extreme events accompanied by specific information on the role climate change has played in fuelling them. The shift would help meteorologists bring the reality of our warming planet home to the general public. Key to this idea is the growing field of attribution science, which involves examining extreme weather events after the fact to quantify the impact of climate change. It involves simulating an event twice, under real-world conditions and in a fictional world where there is no human-caused climate change. The difference between those two scenarios reveals the extent to which rising emissions made matters worse. Such attribution used to take months, but techniques have improved dramatically in recent years, to the point where it can…

SPACEX’S Polaris Dawn mission is a leap forward for private space flight, even though it demonstrates the same capabilities that government space agencies have had for decades. The mission, which splashed down off the coast of Florida at 03:37 local time on 15 September, included the first ever spacewalk, also called an extravehicular activity or EVA, performed by private individuals. This spacewalk was particularly risky. Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon craft doesn’t have an airlock, so performing the EVA meant evacuating the entire capsule of air before two of the crew members, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, ventured out into the vacuum of space. Not only were there no government-trained astronauts on the crew, it was also the first time SpaceX’s new spacesuits and the spacecraft…

THE human brain goes through significant changes during pregnancy with few regions untouched, according to the first ever map of this over the course of gestation and beyond. Some areas of the brain shrink during this time, while others grow and become better connected. These changes are thought to enable mothers to develop strong bonds with their baby and adapt to the demanding task of caring for them. A better understanding of this remodelling could explain several pregnancy-related behaviours and help people at risk of mental health conditions, such as postnatal depression. “The maternal brain undergoes a choreographed change across gestation, and we are finally able to see it unfold,” says Emily Jacobs at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose team carried out the work. “The brain undergoes a choreographed change, and…