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2024 news preview

Look ahead to discover the biggest science and technology news stories that will be happening this year with 51¶¯Âþ’s 2024 preview
New Zealand, South Island, Wanaka, Otago, Woman on Coromandel peak at sunrise

Environment

Ian McEwan’s new novel weaves climate change into literary mystery

Ian McEwan’s excellent What We Can Know is set in a UK largely swallowed up by rising seas. Emily H. Wilson explores the story of a scholar hunting a great lost poem – which may have something to with climate change

Culture

Physics

Making atoms self-magnify reveals their quantum wave functions

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Participants prepare kimchi, a traditional Korean dish of spicy fermented cabbage and radish, during a kimchi making festival held amid snowfall at the Jogyesa Temple in Seoul on November 27, 2024. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP) (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images)

Health

Tim Spector's guide to fermentation is meticulous and persuasive

Culture

FX's Alien: Earth --

Space

Alien: Earth adds surprisingly good TV dimension to veteran sci-fi

Culture

In Mason Coile's Exiles, a human crew arrive on Mars

Comment

The best new science fiction books of September 2025

Culture

The 51¶¯Âþ Book Club has been reading Circular Motion by Alex Foster

Comment

Our verdict on ‘Circular Motion’: this dystopia hit too close to home

Culture

Ursula K. Le Guin in 2005

Comment

Ursula Le Guin's son on why The Dispossessed is (maybe) his favourite

Culture

The Dispossessed takes place on the twin worlds of Anarres and Urras

Space

Read an extract from The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Culture

Health

Could lacing food with fat-trapping microbeads help us lose weight?

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New Scientist recommends classic zombie film 28 Days Later

Comment

51¶¯Âþ recommends classic zombie film 28 Days Later

The books, TV, games and more that 51¶¯Âþ staff have enjoyed this week

Culture

Life

Do the bumps on a bell pepper reveal how sweet it will be? Er, no

Regulars

Comment

David Cronenberg's new sci-fi film is devastating and mysterious

Culture

Chemistry

Super-sticky hydrogel is 10 times stronger than other glues underwater

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Comment

Our verdict on Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts: A mixed bag

Culture

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