As one of the most extraordinary years of modern times draws to a close, New Scientist looks back at the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the possibility …

A YEAR ago, nobody had even heard of SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, covid-19. Today, they are household names all over the world, thanks in no …

ON 10 January 2020, the first genetic sequence of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was published by an international consortium of scientists, and …

UNTIL 2020, many experts thought it was impossible to halt the spread of a respiratory virus once it started to spread out of control. During the …

ONE of the biggest news stories of 2020 was the apparent sighting of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. On Earth, this gas is only produced by living …

For a brief period this year, Earth had an extra moon. The object, called 2020 CD3, was spotted hurtling across the sky in February. After …

The year began with digital havoc, when a computer glitch known as the Y2020 bug took payment systems, parking meters and a wrestling video game …

THIS was a year in which governments went head-to-head with big tech firms. As we went to press, US regulators were suing Facebook over its historic …

THE year began with extreme weather in Australia. Bushfires in the nation, made possible by a severe drought, produced apocalyptic scenes of ships …

With the coronavirus pandemic causing a sharp rise in unemployment, one idea is rapidly growing in popularity: universal basic income (UBI), in which …

In January, the World Economic Forum, backed by US president Donald Trump, announced the One Trillion Trees initiative to plant or protect a trillion …

Progress on nuclear fusion, which attempts to produce energy in the same way as the sun, made some important headway this year. The world’s biggest …