Where to watch the next total solar eclipse anywhere in the world

 

Image courtesy of Red Bluff, CC BY-SA 3.0

Joel Kontinen

Have you ever seen an eclipse of the sun? Now, in many parts of the world, you can see an eclipse, for instance in Europe.

The total solar eclipse on 12 August will only be visible to a lucky few, but eclipses happen all over the world – here are the next ones to look out for, wherever you may be.

On 12 August, a total solar eclipse will sweep a narrow path across parts of Europe and the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Such an eclipse happens somewhere on Earth about once every 18 months as the moon and the sun line up just right so that the moon blocks out the entirety of the sun’s disc, darkening the sky and revealing the outermost layers of the sun that are usually hidden by the glare of its brighter surface. 

For the most part, this August’s total eclipse will only be visible from the ocean and relatively remote areas of land: northern Russia, Greenland, the ocean, and then more inhabited regions as it passes through Iceland and Spain. A broader swathe will see a partial eclipse, but views of the total eclipse’s grandeur will be limited. If you aren’t able to spot this one, though, there will be other chances.

Source:

Leah Crane 2026 Where to watch the next total solar eclipse anywhere in the world | New Scientist 31 July

Strange three-lobed asteroid seems to have its own tiny moon

 

The asteroid 44 Nysa, centre, and its tiny moon, marked with an arrow, Image courtesy of Kate Minker.

Joel Kontinen

Space is wonderful. Ever hard of an asteroid that has its tiny moon? the asteroid is called Nysa  It is  75 kilometres across with a tiny moon just a kilometre across.

Astronomers have spotted one of the strangest-looking asteroids we have ever seen. The space rock, called 44 Nysa, was discovered in 1857, but it wasn’t until now that we had the observational capability to figure out its shape – and its shape is weird.

An E-type asteroid, which is a relatively rare type rich in a mineral called enstatite, 44 Nysa circles the sun in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is the brightest E-type asteroid we know of and one of the largest, with an average diameter of about 75 kilometres, which makes it a tempting observational target.

Source:  

 Leah Crane 2026 Strange three-lobed asteroid seems to have its own tiny moon | New Scientist 29 July

 

 

The genome of a long-extinct ancient human is hiding within us

 

Image courtesy of S. Entressangle/E. Daynes/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

The genome of a long-extinct ancient human is hi A reconstruction of Homo heidelbergensis, which may be a “ghost ancestor” detected in modern human DNA.

What are ghost ancestors in the human line? According to evolution, our ancestors interbred with at least two ancient human lineages in addition to Neanderthals and Denisovans, and now an improved method has given us a much better idea of which bits of our DNA came from them. In fact, it shows that nearly the entire genome of one of these “ghost ancestors” is preserved in small bits spread among all living humans.

But according to Genesis, Eve is the mother of all humans, so that this study is false.

In any person alive today, between 0.5 and 1 per cent of their DNA comes from this ghost ancestor, says Yulin Zhang at the University of California, Berkeley. But different people have different bits of DNA from them and, crucially, they are spread fairly evenly around the genome.

We all have bits of DNA from a long-lost “ghost ancestor” inside us – and by putting all the different bits together, we might be able to reconstruct their genome

Source:

Michael Le Page 2026 The genome of a long-extinct ancient human is hiding within us | New Scientist 30 July 

Mystery hominin left big footprints at ancient lake in Africa

 

Image courtesy of Kevin G. Hatala

Footprints left by eight ancient hominins 1.43 million years ago beside a Kenyan lake have puzzled researchers because they don’t look quite as expected for species known to have lived there at that time.

Altogether, 21 hominin footprints have been found at the Lake Turkana site, known to researchers as GaJi10, part of which was first discovered in 1978. They are not the footprints of homo erectus or Paranthropus boisei,  

 Source:

James Woodford 2026 Mystery hominin left big footprints at ancient lake in Africa | New Scientist 27 July 

 

 

Sabre-toothed cats could crunch through bone

 

Sabre-toothed cats were top predators during the Pleistocene epoch. Image courtesy of Mauricio Anton/Science Photo Library.

Joel Kontinen

In the ice age, the sabre-toothed cats were the top predators, they could bite through hard bones. They are the descendants of the predators that lived after  fall of Man  in Genesis 3, when animals could eat other animals.

An analysis of megafauna remains from Argentina reveals sabre-toothed cats could crunch through bones, reshaping views about their supposedly weak sabres.

The study focuses on the bones of several large South American herbivores uncovered from Salto de Piedra, which lies about 350 kilometres south of Buenos Aires. Prior work has uncovered the skeletons of an abundance of large animals from the site, including giant armadillos, giant land sloths, mastodons and sabre-toothed cats like Smilodon populator. The site is one of the only robustly dated Pleistocene localities in Argentina, allowing researchers to thoroughly track its animal populations over time.

Source:

Taylor Mitchell Brown 2026 Sabre-toothed cats could crunch through bone | New Scientist 22 July 

Having a young biological age could help with weight loss

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Tatiana Bralnina. 

Joel Kontinen

 If one is of young biological age, it could help with weight loss apart from heart disease, cancer and dementia.

A new discovery suggests it may also aid with weight loss, possibly by making the more efficient at switching from using food for energy to using stored fat.

In February 2026, a review of existing research concluded that intermittent fasting – such as the 5:2 diet, where you eat as normal on five days a week and restrict calories on the other two – is probably no more effective for weight loss than doing nothing at all. But fasting can also involve eating no, or very little, food for a single, continuous stretch of time, which is sometimes done for religious reasons.

Source:

Emma Young 2026 Having a young biological age could help with weight loss | New Scientist 24 July

 

Dark energy doesn’t exist, claims controversial paper

 

Image courtesy of NASA/Hubble Heritage, STScI/AURA/R. Fesen, Dartmouth, J. Morse, Univ. of Colorado

Joel Kontinen

Dark energy  dues not exist, says a paper that some have claimed is controversial.  The paper says that the universe is not expanding so there is no need for dark energy,  

Dark energy may not actually exist. This is the conclusion of a controversial analysis that says not only have we got this wrong, but the universe’s expansion isn’t speeding up either, rebuffing a central pillar of modern cosmology. Though many researchers have yet to be convinced.

Since Edwin Hubble’s observations of pulsating stars in 1929, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. For decades, that expansion was expected to happen at a roughly constant rate, but observations of a type of exploding star called a Type Ia supernova in the 1990s changed this.

Source:

Matt von Hippel 2026 Dark energy doesn't exist, claims controversial paper | New Scientist 23 July