change
Artificial intelligence and climate change were 2023’s twin challenges
Screenwriters and Writers Guild Of Great Britain (WGGB) members stage a rally in Leicester Square Vuk Valcic/Alamy WHEN New Scientist editors sat down to discuss the biggest story of 2023, one topic shot straight to the top of the list. It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that artificial intelligence rocketed to prominence this year, with…
Climate change made 2023 the hottest year on record
This year didn’t just shatter records. It changed the scales. Graph after graph tracking this year’s soaring global temperatures reveal that not only were the numbers higher than ever recorded in many places around the world, but the deviation from the norm was also astonishingly large. “The margins by which records are being broken this…
Rare gene variants can change your height by up to 7 centimetres
Our height is mainly influenced by our genetics rather than environmental factors, such as nutrition AHPhotoswpg/Getty Images Nearly 30 rare gene variants that decrease people’s height by up to 7 centimetres, or raise it by up to 5 cm, have been discovered by analysing the genomes of more than 300,000 individuals. “The variants I found,…