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This week's magazine

28 December 2024

Issue 3523

New Scientist issue 3523 cover
Previous issue

On the cover

Culture
The best popular science books to look forward to in 2025
Features
Why looking after your skin is so crucial to your long-term health
What should we eat to give us better, healthier skin
Should you really wear sunscreen all year round, even in winter?
The only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work
What the evidence says about the consequences of cosmetic tweakments
How your mental state and stress levels influence your skin
How to nurture your microbiome to look after your skin
How to fix computing's AI energy problem: run everything backwards
News
Could 2025 be the year we finally start to understand dark energy?
We'll learn about Ozempic's potential for Alzheimer's disease in 2025
Disease-resistant pork may go on sale in 2025 thanks to gene editing
We could discover a new element on the periodic table in 2025
These are all of the missions heading to the moon in 2025
Regulars
Remarkable images capture the diversity of Earth's ice formations
The stargazing events to look forward to in 2025
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Editor's picks

False-colour scanning electron micrograph of skin from the palm of the hand of a 30 year old man. The skin here is neatly arranged in ridges. Sweat pores are seen as miniature craters along the ridges. The cells forming the external surface of the skin, or epidermis, have been flattened & hardened by deposition within them of the fibrous protein keratin. This tough, dead layer of cells is shed continuously & is replaced by new, maturing cells which take a month to migrate from the base of the epidermis. Magnification: x20 at 6x4.5cm size

Health

Forget aesthetics, the reason to look after our skin should be health

Leader

Free
Why looking after your skin is so crucial to your long-term health

Health

Why looking after your skin is so crucial to your long-term health

Features

Free
How to fix computing's AI energy problem: run everything backwards

Technology

How to fix computing's AI energy problem: run everything backwards

Features

Subscriber-only
Microneedling demonstration by Dr. Jimmy Poon where a number of local Estheticans were introduced to the procedure that some see as unsafe.Dr Poon uses the Microneedle roller on the face of Esthetician Karen Clarke.(October 30 11)RICK EGLINTON/TORONTO STAR. (Photo by Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Health

What the evidence says about the consequences of cosmetic tweakments

Features

Subscriber-only
Close up color image depicting freshly cooked take away vegetarian vegan food.

Health

What should we eat to give us better, healthier skin

Features

Subscriber-only
SWITZERLAND. St Moritz. 2003.

Health

Should you really wear sunscreen all year round, even in winter?

Features

Subscriber-only
CXRC8E People taking a mud bath, spa on Lake Koycegiz, Sultaniye, near Dalyan, Mugla Province, Turkey, Asia Minor

Health

How to nurture your microbiome to look after your skin

Features

Subscriber-only
DARMSTADT, GERMANY - MARCH 19: A student sits the English school leaving examination (Abitur) at the Berthold Brecht School on March 19, 2020 in Darmstadt, Germany. It is the first day of the university-entrance diploma exams in Hesse. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, all schools in Germany are closed, however, it has been decided that the Abitur should take place with the necessary safety precautions in place. Everyday life in Germany has become fundamentally altered as authorities tighten measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

Health

How your mental state and stress levels influence your skin

Features

Subscriber-only
A customer walks down a skincare aisle at an Ulta Beauty Inc. store in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 31, 2018. Ulta reported late Thursday??that its comparable sales rose 8.1 percent in the first quarter from??a year earlier. The increase was driven by all the right things: A booming 48 percent increase in digital sales,??as well as 5.1 percent growth in transactions and a 3 percent increase in average ticket. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Health

The only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work

Features

Subscriber-only

Table of contents

Leaders

False-colour scanning electron micrograph of skin from the palm of the hand of a 30 year old man. The skin here is neatly arranged in ridges. Sweat pores are seen as miniature craters along the ridges. The cells forming the external surface of the skin, or epidermis, have been flattened & hardened by deposition within them of the fibrous protein keratin. This tough, dead layer of cells is shed continuously & is replaced by new, maturing cells which take a month to migrate from the base of the epidermis. Magnification: x20 at 6x4.5cm size

Health

Forget aesthetics, the reason to look after our skin should be health

New research shows that ensuring the skin is in excellent condition should be a priority for anyone who wants to increase their chances of living a long life

Leader

Free

News

Technology

Flying electric taxis look set to finally take off in 2025

Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft are on track to start commercial passenger carrying services in 2025, but can they stand out from conventional helicopters?

News

Subscriber-only

An artistic celebration of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) year-one data, showing a slice of the larger 3D map that DESI is constructing during its five-year survey. By mapping objects across multiple periods of cosmic history with extremely high precision, DESI is allowing astronomers to make unprecedented measurements of dark energy and its effect on the accelerating expansion of the Universe. DESI???s map reveals the large-scale structure of the Universe, showing clumps of galaxies separated by voids where there are fewer objects. This pattern is a result of large pressure waves that permeated the early Universe and is reflected in the cosmic microwave background ??? a 2D snapshot of the radiation that filled the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, which bears the imprint of the 3D galaxy distribution. DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. This version of the DESI map includes 600,000 galaxies ??? less than 0.1% of the survey's full volume. The locations of objects in the data slice do not correlate with their locations on-sky shown in this image.

Space

Could 2025 be the year we finally start to understand dark energy?

News

Subscriber-only

B6DT04 Alzheimers disease. Series of computed tomography (CT) scans of an axial section through the head of a 74-year-old patient.

Health

We'll learn about Ozempic's potential for Alzheimer's disease in 2025

News

Subscriber-only

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/Shutterstock (14937083f) Activists stage a protest during a press conference in Blue Zone during United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29, an event held by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku Olympic Stadium. COP29, running from November 11-22 focuses on climate funding. UN Climate Conference COP29 in Baku - Day eleven, Azerbaijan - 22 Nov 2024

Environment

COP30 host Brazil aims to get 2025 climate talks back on track

News

Subscriber-only

Digit GXO

Technology

Humanoid robots will march into factories and homes in 2025

News

Subscriber-only

The world?s largest Direct Air Capture facility from 1PointFive, STRATOS, currently being developed in Ector County, TX

Environment

Direct CO2 capture from the atmosphere will scale up massively in 2025

News

Subscriber-only

Genus CRISPR edited pig

Environment

Disease-resistant pork may go on sale in 2025 thanks to gene editing

News

Subscriber-only

Jacklyn Gates (Staff Scientist, Heavy Element Group) at the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator, BGS, in Building 88 on Monday, July 8, 2024 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. Experts in the Nuclear Science Division use the 88-Inch Cyclotron to test a new way to make superheavy element 116, livermorium.

Physics

We could discover a new element on the periodic table in 2025

News

Subscriber-only

Space

These are all of the missions heading to the moon in 2025

News

Subscriber-only

Aperture

Canton Z?rich, Switzerland Ice has formed around a waterfall near Gibswil. Icicles growing from the top, and ice formations growing from the bottom have coalesced into one continuous column. Page 16 + 17

Earth

Remarkable images capture the diversity of Earth's ice formations

In the new photographic collection Our Frozen Planet, Michael Hambrey and Jürg Alean set out to celebrate the world's ice in all its forms

Regulars

Free

Features

Why looking after your skin is so crucial to your long-term health

Health

Why looking after your skin is so crucial to your long-term health

Emerging evidence suggests a surprisingly strong connection between keeping your largest organ healthy and staving off age-related conditions like diabetes, heart disease and dementia

Features

Free

Close up color image depicting freshly cooked take away vegetarian vegan food.

Health

What should we eat to give us better, healthier skin

Features

Subscriber-only

SWITZERLAND. St Moritz. 2003.

Health

Should you really wear sunscreen all year round, even in winter?

Features

Subscriber-only

A customer walks down a skincare aisle at an Ulta Beauty Inc. store in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 31, 2018. Ulta reported late Thursday??that its comparable sales rose 8.1 percent in the first quarter from??a year earlier. The increase was driven by all the right things: A booming 48 percent increase in digital sales,??as well as 5.1 percent growth in transactions and a 3 percent increase in average ticket. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Health

The only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work

Features

Subscriber-only

Microneedling demonstration by Dr. Jimmy Poon where a number of local Estheticans were introduced to the procedure that some see as unsafe.Dr Poon uses the Microneedle roller on the face of Esthetician Karen Clarke.(October 30 11)RICK EGLINTON/TORONTO STAR. (Photo by Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Health

What the evidence says about the consequences of cosmetic tweakments

Features

Subscriber-only

DARMSTADT, GERMANY - MARCH 19: A student sits the English school leaving examination (Abitur) at the Berthold Brecht School on March 19, 2020 in Darmstadt, Germany. It is the first day of the university-entrance diploma exams in Hesse. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, all schools in Germany are closed, however, it has been decided that the Abitur should take place with the necessary safety precautions in place. Everyday life in Germany has become fundamentally altered as authorities tighten measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

Health

How your mental state and stress levels influence your skin

Features

Subscriber-only

CXRC8E People taking a mud bath, spa on Lake Koycegiz, Sultaniye, near Dalyan, Mugla Province, Turkey, Asia Minor

Health

How to nurture your microbiome to look after your skin

Features

Subscriber-only

How to fix computing's AI energy problem: run everything backwards

Technology

How to fix computing's AI energy problem: run everything backwards

Features

Subscriber-only

Culture

Woman in her late 30s reading a book in the mountain cabin, relaxing in the hammock next to the fireplace.

Comment

The best popular science books to look forward to in 2025

Understanding why we think the way we do is a hot topic for many of 2025’s books – that and finding new ways to re-evaluate old “truths”, says Simon Ing

Culture

Subscriber-only

Astronaut on alien planet entering spacetime portal light. Science fiction universe exploration. 3D render; Shutterstock ID 2198384061; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Space

The best science fiction novels to look forward to in 2025

Culture

Subscriber-only

More

On 22 August 2024, summit staff reinstalled Rubin Observatory's commissioning camera (ComCam) on the telescope. ComCam has previously been on the telescope, but was removed before the installation of the secondary mirror in late July. ComCam ??? a smaller (144 megapixel), simpler version of the full 3200-megapixel LSST Camera ??? is being used for testing activities prior to installing the LSST Camera, anticipated to happen late 2024. In the coming weeks the summit team will install the primary/tertiary mirror, enabling ComCam to produce the first astronomical data from the Simonyi Survey Telescope.

Space

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory gets started next year. I can't wait

Around the middle of 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will begin its mission to help us better understand the cosmos. There's a lot to look forward to, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Comment

Subscriber-only

2WYBYF8 North America; United States; Alaska; Denali National Park; Taiga-Tundra; Winter; Natural Phenomena; Night Sky; Aurora Borealis; Northern Lights;

Space

The stargazing events to look forward to in 2025

Regulars

Subscriber-only

BrainTwister #53: Dividing digits

BrainTwister #53: Dividing digits

Regulars

Subscriber-only

Should chatbots have rights – and should we care?

Technology

Should chatbots have rights – and should we care?

Comment

Subscriber-only

Tom Gauld on making new year's resolutions – or not

Tom Gauld on making new year's resolutions – or not

Regulars

Free

Twisteddoodles on an ill-advised new year's detox

Twisteddoodles on an ill-advised new year's detox

Regulars

Free

Regulars

Is Christmas better now it's over? Don't worry, that's common

Is Christmas better now it's over? Don't worry, that's common

Feedback was not all that surprised to learn that we tend to only see major rituals as positive experiences once they have finished

Regulars

Free

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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