There are some stories that stay with you forever, the big scientific moments that change the course of history. These are not those moments – but we can’t stop thinking about them anyway.

Push my button

Surgeon Stuart Meloy was performing a pain-relief operation on a woman’s spine when she started exclaiming emphatically. “You’re going to have to teach my husband to do that,” the woman said. This inspired Meloy to invent an implant to help women who are unable to achieve orgasms in the usual way. New Scientist broke the news in 2001, sparking a frenzy of worldwide media excitement. But 13 years later, Meloy was still struggling to raise funds for a full clinical trial, and the “orgasmatron” never reached a climax.

Monkey pleasure

We aren’t the only primates capable of coming up with creative ways to pleasure ourselves. In a study of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Bali, Indonesia, at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, and her colleagues filmed hundreds of examples of male and female monkeys using stone tools as sex toys, rubbing or tapping them on their genitals. According to at the University of Western Australia, the Balinese monkeys get plenty of food handouts from humans, and this frees up time for sexual experimentation. But some monkeys in other places have unusual kinks, too: another study reported a wild macaque in Japan rubbing its genitals on the back of a sika deer.

Head transplants

In 2015, surgeon Sergio Canavero announced plans to carry out the first human head transplant, intended to extend the lives of people with muscle and nerve degeneration or widespread cancer. He claimed his technique could overcome technical hurdles, including how to fuse the spinal cord and prevent the body’s immune system from rejecting the head. In the following two years, Canavero published animal experiments supposedly backing up his methods, but other surgeons remained highly sceptical. A human head transplant never did happen, but Canavero has reportedly moved on to an even bolder ambition:

Rats driving

Have you ever wondered if a rat can drive a car? Kelly Lambert at the University of Richmond in Virginia has. She and her colleagues built a tiny car with three copper bars that would steer it left, forward or right. Sure enough, 18 rats learned to drive towards food rewards. They even found it relaxing, as measurements of their stress hormones indicated. Lambert proposed that driving challenges could replace traditional maze tests when using rat models to study neuropsychiatric conditions.

The sniff test

Humans are more similar to rats than we like to think. In a psychology experiment, and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, surreptitiously filmed 153 volunteers. After shaking hands with someone of the same sex, people smelled their shaking hand more than twice as much as they did before the handshake. Puzzlingly, after shaking hands with someone of the opposite sex, people were more likely to sniff their non-shaking hand. The team suspected that humans use chemical signals all the time without being aware of it.

Urine fountains

Communication through scent is, of course, widespread in mammals, but some never-before-seen behaviour in dolphins took biologists by surprise in 2025. While studying Amazon river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis), or botos, in Brazil, Claryana Araújo-Wang at CetAsia Research Group in Ontario, Canada, saw a male “flip his belly up out of the water, expose his penis and then proceed to urinate into the air”, she told New Scientist. They saw dolphins do this a total of 36 times, and most of the time another male was nearby and would pursue the stream of urine. The purpose of this behaviour hasn’t yet been established, but hormones in urine might signal a male’s social position or physical condition, said Araújo-Wang.

Giving the finger

As for human modes of communication, many of us struggle to put our smartphones down – so the last thing we’d want is for them to crawl across the table towards us. Nevertheless, Marc Teyssier at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and his colleagues gave phones this ability in 2018, with a robotic appendage dubbed the MobiLimb. It plugs into a device’s USB port and, for some reason, looks eerily like a human finger, giving it a spooky quality reminiscent of Thing from The Addams Family. The MobiLimb can stroke your wrist, wave, wag like a tail or, most disconcertingly, drag the phone around. Thankfully, the idea hasn’t taken off.

Horror frog

If you find the thought of a phone with a finger horrifying, wait until you hear about the nightmare-inducing hairy frog Trichobatrachus robustus. In 2008, researchers reported that these frogs can break their own bones to produce claws that burst through their skin. at Harvard University’s thought these weapons were for defence, but two years later, that they were used in fights between males – and that the frog’s unusual hairs were a kind of armour to protect its vulnerable parts from sharp claws.

Corpse shrinking

In 1957, when New Scientist was 1 year old, we reported on a new method for shrinking an adult human body to the size of a baby. At an exhibition of inventors in Winnipeg, Canada, the unnamed inventor of this process claimed it would make disposing of dead bodies simpler, as they could be slid into underground tubes and take up less space. The method involved applying high pressure to the corpse and squeezing out fluids so its flesh could be compressed into a mould. “All this is, of course, highly ingenious but it is uncertain why the inventor thinks that his newly proposed form of burial is in any way better than the current and very popular method of cremation,” the writer mused.

Transient anus

We may take it for granted, but the anus, which allows food to pass through the body, was an evolutionary breakthrough, both figuratively and literally. The earliest animals, like jellyfish today, had only one gut opening, where food went in and waste came out. In 2019, scientists discovered that the warty comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi, pictured top) forms an anal opening when it needs to defecate, but it vanishes straight afterwards. This, they suggested, could represent how the anus evolved in the first place.

Fart science

Flatus – gas expelled from the anus – has been a topic of endless fascination for many readers (and journalists). In 2001, we featured the work of Michael Levitt at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Minneapolis, a leading authority on the subject. He developed a “Toot Trapper” that reduces odours by trapping certain gases using activated charcoal. We also reported on a device for monitoring gas emissions from dogs, used to test dog snacks that were supposed to reduce flatulence. In 2016, researchers in Australia worked out which foods cause the smelliest farts by mixing faeces with different foods. They recommended eating less protein and more slow-release carbohydrates to minimise hydrogen sulphide production. In 2022, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and his colleagues worked out that some poos float because of gas from gut microbes, confirming a hypothesis first put forward by Levitt 50 years earlier.

Brew your own

Even stranger things go on inside some people’s intestines, as we found out in 2019. A 46-year-old man started experiencing unexplained mental fogginess, dizziness and memory loss, and had to give up his job. Later, doctors found high levels of alcohol in his blood when he hadn’t been drinking. Eventually, they realised his gut contained high levels of Saccharomyces cerevisiae – brewer’s yeast – which got him drunk any time he ate a lot of carbohydrates. This rare condition, known as auto brewery syndrome, had been triggered when the man took antibiotics for a thumb injury, which disrupted his gut microbiome. This year, a study reported that another man with this condition fully recovered after getting a transplant of faeces from a healthy donor. Both articles were written by Alice Klein, who we also have to thank for the monkey sex toys, car-driving rats, smelly farts and floating poos. Thanks, Alice!

The Late Triassic seas contained a multitude of marine reptiles, but lurking on the sea floor was something different: a marine amphibian. A fossil of the large, bottom-dwelling ambush predator discovered in China is the first evidence that amphibians once found a way to adapt to life in the ocean.

Named Gerrothorax maritimus, the near-perfect and exquisitely preserved 74-centimetre-long fossil was found by farmers in what is now a national geopark in Guanling county, China.

The researchers who studied the fossil think that its secret to survival in salt water, which is normally fatal to amphibians because of their permeable skin, probably lay in its strong body armour.

“It was a flat animal that lived on the sea floor,” says at the University of California, Davis, who was part of the team that analysed the fossil. It was probably an ambush feeder, he says, as its wide mouth and the strong hyoid bone in its neck suggest it used suction feeding, as is seen in some modern bottom-dwelling predators of a similar size that use an ambush strategy, such as wobbegong sharks.

As soon as the researchers began to study the fossil, they knew it was neither fish nor reptile. It had to be an early amphibian because of its tell-tale anatomy, which included its four legs and gills.

There is, however, no evidence that the creature underwent metamorphosis, as many modern amphibians do, such as when tadpoles become frogs, says Motani.

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To prove that the animal was indeed marine and not just a land-based creature washed into the sea after death, the researchers studied the strontium isotope ratios of the fossil bones.

They found that the remains of the new species had a clear signature of sea water, meaning G. maritimus grew to adulthood while in the ocean. Palaeogeographic reconstructions also suggest that, 237 million years ago in the Late Triassic Period, the location in which the fossil was discovered was at least 30 kilometres away from land.

The fossil was also recovered alongside that of a large marine reptile: an ichthyosaur called Guizhouichthyosaurus, which reached lengths of 7 metres.

Interestingly, the closest relative to G. maritimus lived in freshwater environments. A fossil of this amphibian, Gerrothorax pulcherrimus, was first described nearly a century ago.

This has led the researchers to suggest the marine lifestyle of G. maritimus was an accident of evolution. “There was a freshwater amphibian that happened to have the equipment needed to colonise the sea – the body armour,” says Motani.

The armour originally protected the Gerrothorax genus from predators in fresh water. But because it formed an impermeable barrier, it could also help the amphibians survive in seawater, he says.

Although it is commonly believed that “amphibious” means the ability to be on land or in the water, this is a misconception, says Motani. There are many modern newts that never leave the water, yet they are amphibians, he says.

Spectacular fossil preserves internal organs of ancient marine reptile

A stunningly intact marine reptile named Austronaga minuta that lived around 245 million years ago may have looked like a miniature version of more famous later ocean predators, like plesiosaurs

“My take is that it is similar to calling a snake a tetrapod, when it does not have limbs,” says Motani.

at Flinders University, Australia, says the fossil is a first, given that none of the 8000 or so living species of amphibians today is fully adapted for life in the sea.

“If not for the marine invasion by many groups of reptiles at the same time, they might have even had a chance at diversifying in this niche, but that clearly didn’t occur,” he says. “It shows us that amphibians closely related to modern forms were able to adapt to different environments, like seawater, in ways we never thought possible.”

The hall hummed with joyous curiosity at this year’s New Scientist Live at Excel London, which ran from 10 to 12 October and attracted thousands of visitors of all ages.

With topics including the search for extraterrestrial life, what AI is teaching us about consciousness and the maths behind Pokémon, there was a delightful range to explore. Highlights included physicist Jim Al-Khalili diving into the deepest mysteries of time and psychologist Kimberley Wilson on how to build lifelong brain health. Other packed talks ranged from how we evolved, from anthropologist Alice Roberts, to a myth-busting take on supplements by doctors Chris and Xand van Tulleken.

Fans lined up to meet speakers, including naturalist Chris Packham, who shared moving thoughts on why science is crucial to tackling the climate crisis. Younger fans flocked for selfies with mathematician and YouTuber Tom Crawford, who fought a fierce maths battle with maths teacher and TV presenter Bobby Seagull.

On the show floor, people could journey through a giant inflatable gut, 3D-print organs and get hands-on with large insects. They also lined up to board a Chinook helicopter, or step into a hospital of the future. Plus, in virtual reality, they could swim through coral reefs and explore the body in 3D.

Visitors also saw New Scientist staff, including editor Catherine de Lange, predict the biggest scientific breakthroughs in the next 70 years. Plus, podcast editor Rowan Hooper hosted an emergency briefing on the climate crisis, joined by leading climate and biodiversity scientists.

The talks were all recorded and will be available to stream online for 12 months. See for details of how to get access.

A remarkable fossil found in China raises the possibility that some of the earliest bird species never took wing or abandoned flight almost immediately after they had evolved the ability.

at the Chinese Academy of Sciences says the discovery of the new flightless species, Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis, could mean that powered flight didn’t drive the evolution of birds’ unique anatomy at all.

“This new fossil changes our assumption about what a Jurassic bird looked like,” says Wang.

Recent discoveries are disrupting the view that the evolution of birds and flight proceeded in a straight line, including another recently announced bird-like dinosaur, also found in China, that had evolved to fly but emerged from a completely different lineage.

The almost-complete new fossil, which is about 148 million to 150 million years old, was discovered in August 2024 near Yangyuang village, Fujian Province, and has been named by Wang and his colleagues after Yuezhuo, a mythological Chinese bird.

When alive, Y. yangyuanensis was around half a metre tall, weighing just over 800 grams – probably as big as a large crow, Wang says. He suspects the creature most likely lived in a swampy environment and was probably a good runner.

After comparing the ancient bird’s anatomy with nearly 400 living birds, the researchers concluded Y. yangyuanensis is most like modern ground-dwelling pheasants. These modern birds have forelimbs shorter than their hindlimbs, and Y. yangyuanensis did, too. While pheasants can fly in short bursts, they are effectively ground-dwellers.

The aerial abilities of some other early birds, including Archaeopteryx, are sometimes questioned, but they have forelimbs longer than their hindlimbs, and than Y. yangyuanensis.

Y. yangyuanensis also had a distinctive sickle-shaped claw on its second toe that was “highly functional”, says Wang, and probably used in prey capture. It was very similar in appearance to the claws of its distant relatives, including Velociraptor. Modern birds have lost these claws.

Unlike modern birds, Y. yangyuanensis had a long tail, similar to Archaeopteryx. It also had closely packed, serrated teeth like those typically present in deinonychosaur dinosaurs.

Fossil mammal with reptile-like teeth changes picture of our evolution

Unlike most modern mammals, which get just two sets of teeth in their lifetime, an ancient species from the Cretaceous, found in China, appears to have had the ability to replace its teeth throughout its life

But in other anatomical features, Y. yangyuanensis resembles other birds. Its hip bones and fibula – one of the lower leg bones – closely mirror those of later Cretaceous birds, says Wang.

The mix of dinosaur and bird features present in Y. yangyuanensis demonstrates that the bird body plan wasn’t a steady progression towards flight optimisation, say the researchers – particularly given that their analysis suggests Archaeopteryx, a stronger flier, was actually more primitive than Y. yangyuanensis.

Rather, they say, bird evolution was a more complex and rapid process than previously thought. It saw early species almost immediately explore different niches and specialisations, including lifestyles that didn’t involve flying. This challenges the notion that the early evolution of the avian body plan was driven almost exclusively by the selective pressures of flight, Wang says.

“[Y. yangyuanensis] exhibits a striking ‘mosaic’ of primitive and derived features – blending classic avian traits with distinct characteristics inherited from non-[avian] dinosaurs,” he says.