New Scientist Australian Edition 26-Nov-22

Academy Science of sleep and dreams Discover the latest thinking about the science of sleep in this free short course. There are tips on how to sleep better, as well as video tutorials from experts in psychology and neuroscience. Plus, there is an opportunity to learn about sleep engineering – the idea that we can manipulate sleep to maximise its health and cognitive benefits. academy.newscientist.com Virtual event The best of New Scientist 2022 Subscribers can now register for this free event, in which our expert panel of journalists review the biggest scientific stories of the year and look forward to 2023. There is also a chance to put your questions to the team. Join us online at 6pm GMT/1pm EST on 13 December. newscientist.com/decevent1 Podcast Weekly Podcast editor Rowan Hooper…

Academy Science of sleep and dreams Discover the latest thinking about the science of sleep in this free short course. There are tips on how to sleep better, as well as video tutorials from experts in psychology and neuroscience. Plus, there is an opportunity to learn about sleep engineering – the idea that we can manipulate sleep to maximise its health and cognitive benefits. academy.newscientist.com Virtual event The best of New Scientist 2022 Subscribers can now register for this free event, in which our expert panel of journalists review the biggest scientific stories of the year and look forward to 2023. There is also a chance to put your questions to the team. Join us online at 6pm GMT/1pm EST on 13 December. newscientist.com/decevent1 Podcast Weekly Podcast editor Rowan Hooper talks to David Labonte at Imperial College London about Atta…

Dear reader, For two decades, the south-west of North America has been in the grip of its worst drought for a thousand years. This megadrought has withered the region, fuelling severe wildfires and dramatically altering the landscape, perhaps forever. It is also changing ways of life for millions of people, and the impacts will ripple out to global economies too. Over the past two months, our Parched Earth series has been investigating what is happening with the megadrought: what caused it, how we can mitigate against its harms, how it will end and what we know and don’t know. The series culminates with one of the most important pieces yet. The Colorado river – known as the Nile of North America – carved the Grand Canyon millions of years ago.…

Dear reader, For two decades, the south-west of North America has been in the grip of its worst drought for a thousand years. This megadrought has withered the region, fuelling severe wildfires and dramatically altering the landscape, perhaps forever. It is also changing ways of life for millions of people, and the impacts will ripple out to global economies too. Over the past two months, our Parched Earth series has been investigating what is happening with the megadrought: what caused it, how we can mitigate against its harms, how it will end and what we know and don’t know. The series culminates with one of the most important pieces yet. The Colorado river – known as the Nile of North America – carved the Grand Canyon millions of years ago. Today, it…

WHEN it comes to communicating and connecting with others, language is the most important tool we have. But it isn’t always a unifying force. A survey of people in 14 high-income countries, for example, found that language was considered by far the most critical factor in defining national identity, which suggests we tend to think people who don’t speak “our national language” may not belong. The reconstruction of prehistoric languages offers an intriguing antidote to this way of thinking. As we explore in a feature this week, many of the world’s tongues share a common history. This goes beyond the obvious – the similarities between English and German, say – and instead shows how languages as diverse as Bengali, Hungarian and Mongolian might ultimately all belong to the same vast “super-family”. The…

WHEN it comes to communicating and connecting with others, language is the most important tool we have. But it isn’t always a unifying force. A survey of people in 14 high-income countries, for example, found that language was considered by far the most critical factor in defining national identity, which suggests we tend to think people who don’t speak “our national language” may not belong. The reconstruction of prehistoric languages offers an intriguing antidote to this way of thinking. As we explore in a feature this week, many of the world’s tongues share a common history. This goes beyond the obvious – the similarities between English and German, say – and instead shows how languages as diverse as Bengali, Hungarian and Mongolian might ultimately all belong to the same vast…