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This photo series capturing efforts to save the Chinook salmon of the Klamath river in the western US won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo 2025 competition

Yurok Tribal members and biologists set up fish traps with technicians on a tributary of the Klamath River in CaliforniaVivian Wan

Yurok Tribal members and biologists set up fish traps with technicians on a tributary of the Klamath River in California

Restoring a way of life is at the heart of this photograph by Vivian Wan, part of a series that won the New Scientist Editors Award in theEarth Photo 2025 competition.

It shows members of the Yurok community working with biologists and technicians to set up rotary screw traps on the Trinity river, a major tributary of the Klamath river, in Willow Creek, California. The team uses fish traps to check the animals’ health and study their migration patterns.

Read moreFive climate megaprojects that might just save the world

Five climate megaprojects that might just save the world

The Klamath basin is at the heart of Yurok life, with its rich waters providing large Chinooksalmon(Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), which hold deep cultural and spiritual significance to the community. But two centuries of colonisation in the region have displaced the Yurok and depleted local resources through mining, logging and the construction of dams.

Climate change and diverted river water further pushed the salmon population to the brink. In 2002, new irrigation policies resulted in tens of thousands of Chinook salmon in the Klamath River dying. This added impetus to a decades-long fight to remove the river’sdams. Last year, the final dam on the river was dismantled.

For Wan, the aim was to explore how Indigenous communities lead the battle for environmental justice. “I hope viewers come away with a deeper sense of respect for the Yurok people’s strength, culture and fight to protect Klamath basin,” she says.

Below, Hunter Mattz, a technician with Yurok Fisheries, studies a monitor showing magnified salmon scales to gain more clues about mortality rates from fishing and natural causes. The data helps set catch limits and spawning goals, as well as forecasting run size – the number of salmon that enter a river or stream during a specific period, typically in an annual migration, which is a key indicator of the health and abundance of a salmon population.

Mattz, a third-year Yurok Tribe Fisheries Technician, observes a monitor displaying magnified salmon scalesVivian Wan

Mattz, a third-year Yurok Tribe Fisheries Technician, observes a monitor displaying magnified salmon scales

Here, Mattz holds up a needle-thin tag, which contributes data to the fish-monitoring research programme.

Mattz holds a tiny fish tag that contributes data to the fish monitoring programVivian Wan

Mattz holds a tiny fish tag that contributes data to the fish monitoring program

Mattz oversees the Net Harvesting Project. His role involved navigating a more than 70-kilometre journey from the mouth of the Pacific Ocean through the estuary, the middle of the Klamath basin and on past Blue Creek, California. This work was crucial in collecting data on fish species caught in nets and lines by local residents. The recorded data has helped secure grants for marine conservation efforts in the Klamath area.

A portrait of Hunter Mattz, who also collects data on fish species caught in nets and lines by local residentsVivian Wan

A portrait of Hunter Mattz, who also collects data on fish species caught in nets and lines by local residents

All winners in the Earth Photo competition were chosen by a panel includingNew Scientist’s picture editor, Tim Boddy, and head of editorial video, David Stock. See the Earth Photo 2025 exhibition at London’s Royal Geographical Society until 20 August, before it tours the UK.

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We’ve known for nearly a century that UV radiation is linked to skin cancer, but modern advice about sunburn can be confusing. To understand what works, you need to know what UV really does to your skin

Sitting in the shade is one easy way to avoid the sun’s UV raysPaul Biggins/Alamy

Sitting in the shade is one easy way to avoid the sun’s UV rays

People have been trying to protect their skin from the sun since at least the time of the ancient Egyptians, and we have known formore than a centurythat ultraviolet (UV) light exposure is linked to burns and skin cancer. But there is often still confusion about the best way to avoid sunburn, whether you can treat it and how much each burn increases your risk of developing cancer. Understanding what sunburn involves at a cellular level, though, can help.

“Sunburn is an inflammatory reaction,” saysLesley Rhodesat the University of Manchester in the UK. It occurs when the UV radiation in sunlight damages the proteins, fats and DNA in cells within the upper layer of the skin, known as the epidermis, kicking off a cascade of inflammatory effects that lead to redness, swelling, pain and peeling.

Read moreThe only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work

The only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work

UVB radiation causes most of this damage, while UVA rays, which have a longer wavelength and also penetrate the skin, contribute much less. “UVB, as a rule of thumb, is 1000 times more effective than UVA at causing sunburn,” saysAntony Youngat King’s College London.

In response to UV damage, skin cells release inflammatory molecules that dilate blood vessels in the dermis, the skin layer beneath the epidermis. This boosts blood flow to the skin within a few hours. In turn, this enhances the infiltration of immune cells from the blood into the skin, which further ramps up inflammation.

In people with lighter skin shades, the increased blood flow gives sunburned skin its pink or red colour. Those with darker skin tones may see their skin change tovarious shades of red, grey, brown and black. The elevated blood supply also means more fluid leaks from the blood into the skin, causing swelling. Both the swelling and inflammatory molecules stimulate nerves, making sunburned skin feel hot and painful.

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In severe cases, blistering can also occur, where patches of skin cells in the epidermis become so damaged that they self-destruct. As these dead patches lift away from the layers beneath them, the space between becomes filled with fluid, forming bubble-like structures on the skin.

“A mild sunburn will resolve more quickly than a severe burn, when effects could go on for 72 hours or longer,” says Rhodes.

Healing begins when immune cells in the skin start producing anti-inflammatory molecules, usually within a few days after UV exposure. “It’s a self-resolving inflammation,” says Rhodes. “Various molecules and cells evolve over time and go from a pro-inflammatory to an anti-inflammatory state.” As a result, blood vessels stop dilating, and any redness, swelling and pain gradually subsides.

Stem cells at the bottom of the epidermis also boost healing by producing new skin cells more rapidly than usual. These replace the damaged ones, which shed or peel from the skin’s surface in large sheets to make way for the new growth. “You’re always shedding skin, but UV damage enhances that cell turnover,” says Young.

Unfortunately, there’s no good-quality evidence that applying after-sun or aloe vera gels can speed up the healing of sunburned skin, says Rhodes. These lotions mainly offer pain relief by providing a cooling sensation. Taking cold showers, applying cold flannels to the skin and using painkillers such as paracetamol (acetaminophen) or ibuprofen can also help with this.

Once the inflammation has died down and the damaged cells at the skin’s surface have shed away, the sunburn is over. But DNA damage to the stem cells deeper within the epidermis can have a much longer legacy.

“You get DNA damage, and DNA damage is repaired by the cells, but the repair is not 100 per cent perfect,” says Young. This results in genetic mutations and when these accumulate over time in genes that regulate cell growth and cell division, they raise the risk of skin cells growing uncontrollably and causing cancer.

Some studies suggest that experiencing five sunburns in a decademore than doubles your risk of melanoma, a form of skin cancer. However, these studies rely on people recalling how often they have been sunburned, which is prone to error. This makes it difficult to quantify exactly how much one instance of sunburn raises your skin cancer risk, says Young.

The skin pigment melanin gives some protection because it surrounds the DNA in skin cells, shielding it from UV damage. Because of this, people with darker skin shades have a much lower risk of skin cancer than people with lighter skin types – but that doesn’t mean darker skin can’t get inflamed and develop sunburn and DNA damage.

How to nurture your microbiome to look after your skinOur skin is host to a thriving community of bacteria, some of which help to restore and protect our epidermis. The hunt is now on for treatments that make the most of these allies

How to nurture your microbiome to look after your skin

Our skin is host to a thriving community of bacteria, some of which help to restore and protect our epidermis. The hunt is now on for treatments that make the most of these allies

If you’re trying to work out the risk of burning on a given day, you need to gauge the UV index, a measure of ultraviolet radiation.Rachel Abbottat the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff says you should apply sunscreen when the index is 3 or higher. Generally, the UV index is unlikely to exceed 3 in the early morning or evening, or between October and March in the UK. But UV rays are stronger nearer the equator, where sunscreen may be needed at any time of year. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be guesswork – there are plenty of freeappsthat can tell you your local UV index. “I use one every day,” says Abbott.

Most people don’t apply sunscreen at the thickness at which it is tested – 2 milligrams per square centimetre of skin – so Young says opting for SPF 50 sunscreen as a default is probably a good idea.

But one of the best ways to avoid sunburn is to stay out of the sun when it is highest in the sky. In the UK, that is between around 11am and 3pm, while the US has a longer window of 10am to 4pm. During this period, sunlight takes a shorter path through the atmosphere, meaning less UVB radiation is absorbed by the air and more hits your skin. If you’re outside, wearing a hat and long-sleeved clothing can also reduce your risk.

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Technology reporter Matthew Sparkes thought his passwords and personal data were safe, but a tour of the murkier sides of the internet revealed otherwise

Hackers are after your personal data, for profitEThamPhoto/Alamy

Hackers are after your personal data, for profit

Make sure you use a good mix of characters. Avoid your pet’s name. Most of all, never reuse a password. We all know the rules for ensuring that the keys to our digital kingdoms remain secure, and we probably all break them – and that is when hackers sweep in to make money from selling your data.

Marketplaces for stolen personal data thrive on thedark web,sites that lie beyond the borders of the regular internet and can only be accessed through software such asTor, which was originally designed by US intelligence agencies for covert communications. Not everything there is nefarious – BBC News runs a dark web site for people living under oppressive surveillance, for instance – but a lot of it is.

Read moreSmart TVs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second

Smart TVs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second

To find out more, I turned toRory Hattingh, an ethical hacker at a company called Evalian, who spends his time breaking into companies – legally – to test security. He tells me there is an “exceptionally small” chance that none of my private data has been leaked by hackers. I have written about technology for long enough to understand how prevalent data breaches are, but being confronted with the stark reality that this includes me is admittedly a bit of a wake-up call.

Hattingh begins by showing me a website calledHave I Been Pwned(a slang term meaning that your data has been compromised), which compiles usernames and passwords shared on the dark web into a single searchable database. I entered my email address and, worryingly, found it had been caught up in 29 hacking attacks.

The most recent happened in 2024, when the Internet Archive was attacked and my email and password were leaked. My details had also been part of 122 gigabytes of user data scraped from thousands of Telegram channels, as well as a database called Naz.API that was originally posted to a hackers’ forum. Other attacks listed involved stolen postal addresses, job titles, phone numbers, IP addresses, password hints and dates of birth from services including Adobe, Dropbox and LinkedIn.

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In theory, these leaks are of limited value: if LinkedIn, say, is hacked and your username and password are leaked, then that doesn’t affect your Facebook account. That’s unless, of course, you are one of the more than 60 per cent of people who use thesame password over and over and over again. In that case, hackers can take these details and leap around the internet, using it anywhere they can think of – usually in a lightning-fast, automated way. Then, says Hattingh, “you’re in a lot of trouble”.

This could include online shopping with your stored payment details, PayPal account or cryptocurrency wallets. Getting access to one account can also help gain entry to others, with email being the jackpot. Once you can send and receive emails from an account, you can reset passwords and break into all manner of other websites, not to mention household billing accounts and perhaps even online banking. Hackers with access to social media or email accounts can also attempt to defraud friends and family with fake tales of emergencies that require a quick bank transfer. The fact that these are coming from a real account gives these tricks an air of plausibility that can be enough to overcome suspicion until it is too late.

Read moreThe truth about social media and screen time's impact on young people

The truth about social media and screen time's impact on young people

To make matters worse, although some companies that suffer hacks are swift to inform people and urge them to change their passwords, others can be more sluggish, leaving people vulnerable for months or even years. Hattingh says that in a previous job, for unnamed clients, he would see ransomware attacks that came and went with little panic. These attacks see the victim’s data being encrypted and held to ransom, rendered useless unless you pay the hacker for the password – but increasingly, some companies just see this as the cost of doing business.

“These companies would get hacked two, three times a year,” says Hattingh. “They’ve got a slush fund for when things go wrong. They pay up and carry on with life. And this is happening all over the world, all the time.”

As concerning as it was to see my personal data out in the open like this, records on Have I Been Pwned are akin to the mechanically reclaimed meat you might find in chicken nuggets. Hattingh says the premium steak of personal data comes when sophisticated hackers first breach a website and steal a fresh haul to sell on to others, who profit from exploiting it. Once those first buyers have extracted what they can, the data will be sold on again and again. Once the most profitable bits of data have been picked out, the rest may end up being released for free on a hackers’ forum, Telegram channel or some other dark corner of the web, where Have I Been Pwned also picks it up.

Working my way up the food chain, Hattingh then showed me a paid-for service called DeHashed that offers not only a broad description of breaches like Have I Been Pwned does, but also their actual contents, including passwords. The name of the service refers to the common security process of “hashing”, or obscuring a password to stop it being copied. Dehashing, of course, strips this away. What I thought was the worst case, but I now realise is actually the norm, turns out to be true: at least one of the passwords listed alongside my email address is both familiar and current. In theory, there had been nothing to stop hackers – or anyone with a passing interest – logging into at least one of my online accounts.

Read moreShould you still learn a second language if AI can translate for you?

Should you still learn a second language if AI can translate for you?

DeHashed is a paid service, costing $219.99 a year, which purports to be for “law enforcement agencies and Fortune 500 companies”. I contacted the company to ask if they are concerned that their tool, which admittedly only collates details leaked elsewhere, could be useful for hackers as well as security workers. I received no response.

I decided I had to go deeper into the dark web. I spoke toAnish Chauhanat Equilibrium Security Services, who showed me the results of a search performed by his team’s bespoke software, which crawls even wider and deeper than the commercial tools I had seen so far. He had found 24 passwords linked to my online accounts.

“Users might say, ‘I’ve got a 200-character password, no one’s ever gonna brute force that’,” says Chauhan. “But say they then use that on every single website they use. It kind of makes it irrelevant really, because it’ll eventually get breached. As humans, we just take the path of least resistance, you know?”

Chauhan says the solution is relatively simple and that we have all heard it before: use a different password for every single account. Having seen how my details have been widely shared, it becomes starkly clear why this is important.

The thing is, the tools to make this easy are already there – most modern devices and internet browsers should come with a password manager that generates random strong passwords and remembers them all for you. If you are concerned that your passwords have already leaked, it might be worth checking out Have I Been Pwned or paying for more extensive services that scour the nefarious regions of the internet for evidence of a leak.

In recent years, I have used a password manager to generate strong passwords and organise them for me, but I realise that some services I have used for a long time have been allowed to fester with old and hacked logins. I spend an evening rectifying that, not least because I want to be prepared before this article is published.

Read moreForcing people to change their passwords is officially a bad idea

Forcing people to change their passwords is officially a bad idea

But I’m not beating myself up too much. Faced with endless demands to come up with new login details, it is no wonder we sometimes take the easy way out. I am certainly not alone in doing so.

“I’m a pretty tech savvy person, and I barely change my passwords,” says Hattingh. “For work, I change it, but in my personal life, I’m a little bit more lazy.”

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Astronomers are puzzled by a strong burst of radio waves traced back to a NASA satellite that had been inactive since the 1960s

An illustration of NASA’s Relay 1 satellite, the precursor to Relay 2NASA

An illustration of NASA’s Relay 1 satellite, the precursor to Relay 2

A satellite that had been dead for decades suddenly blasted out a powerful radio pulse that briefly outshone every other object in the sky. Astronomers think the flash may have been caused by a freak micrometeorite impact or a random spark.

NASA’s Relay 2 satellite was one of the firstfunctioning satellites, launched in 1964 as an experimental communications device. NASA stopped using it the following year, however, and the satellite’s onboard electronics stopped working altogether by 1967, leaving the dead metal hull to orbit Earth indefinitely.

Read moreA supermassive black hole is sending out a mysterious pulsing beat

A supermassive black hole is sending out a mysterious pulsing beat

SoClancy Jamesat Curtin University in Australia and his colleagues were perplexed when, nearly 60 years later, they detected a brief, powerful burst of radio waves coming from the satellite’s apparent location.

James and his team were scanning the sky with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), an array of 36 radio telescopes in Western Australia, for signs of fast radio bursts, mysterious pulses of radiation that come from other galaxies.

On 13 June last year, they saw a signal that seemed to be coming from within our galaxy. “If it’s nearby, we can study it through optical telescopes really easily, so we got all excited, thinking maybe we’d discovered a new pulsar or some other object,” says Clancy.

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But on further inspection, the signal appeared to be so close to Earth that ASKAP couldn’t focus all of its telescopes at once – like how a phone camera struggles to focus on nearby objects. This meant it must have come from within 20,000 kilometres of Earth, says Clancy. The researchers also found that the signal was very short lived, lasting less than 30 nanoseconds. “This was an incredibly powerful radio pulse that vastly outshone everything else in the sky for a very short amount of time,” says Clancy.

When they traced the signal to where it came from and compared it with known satellite positions in the sky, they found just one plausible explanation – the Relay 2 satellite. Since the satellite is no longer functional, Clancy and his team think it must have come from an external event, such as an electrostatic discharge – a build-up of electricity that results in a spark-like flash – or a micrometeorite that struck the satellite and produced a cloud of charged plasma.

It would be very difficult to differentiate between those two scenarios, saysKaren Aplinat the University of Bristol, UK, as the radio signal produced by both would look similar. However, it could be useful to monitor future electrostatic discharges from satellites, she says. “In a world where there is a lot of space debris and there are more small, low-cost satellites with limited protection from electrostatic discharges, this radio detection may ultimately offer a new technique to evaluate electrostatic discharges in space,” she says.

Reference:arXivDOI: arXiv:2506.11462

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Sea spiders living near deep-sea methane seeps appear to cultivate and eat bacteria on their exoskeletons

Sea spider from the genusSericosuraBiance Dal Bó

Sea spider from the genusSericosura

Spider-like creatures living near methane seeps on the seafloor appear to cultivate and consume microbial species on their bodies that feed on the energy-rich gas. This expands the set of organisms known to rely on symbiotic relationships with microbes to live in these otherworldly environments.

Shana Goffrediat Occidental College in California and her colleagues collected sea spiders – marine arthropods named for their resemblance to arachnids – living near three different methane seeps in the Pacific Ocean. They found three previously unknown species from the sea spider genusSericosurathat appear to be abundant only near these gas seeps.

Read moreInvasive snake is surviving in Britain by living in attics and walls

Invasive snake is surviving in Britain by living in attics and walls

Other types of sea spiders that don’t live near seeps largely eat other invertebrates. But the researchers found the new sea spiders appear to get most of their nutrition by eating a distinctive set of bacterial species that live on their bodies. These bacteria harvest energy by metabolising methane and methanol coming from the seeps, energy that would otherwise be inaccessible to the sea spiders.

The researchers found the bacteria were confined to the spiders’ exoskeletons like a “microbial fur coat”, growing in what Goffredi describes as “volcano-like” clusters. The layers of bacterial growth also had markings like lawnmower tracks where the spiders may have munched on them using their hard “lips” and three tiny teeth.

To confirm the sea spiders really were eating the bacteria, the researchers also used a radioactive labelling technique to track how the carbon in methane was consumed by the sea spiders in the lab. “We watched that methane go into the microbes that are on the surface of the spiders, and then we watched that carbon molecule move into the tissues of the spider,” says Goffredi.

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The researchers don’t think the sea spiders are just eating whatever happens to grow on their exoskeletons. Because the species that live on the exoskeletons are distinct from what’s generally found in the environment, it suggests some kind of selection process is at play, says Goffredi. “The spiders are definitely cultivating and farming a very special type of community.”

Sea spiders wouldn’t be the first organisms to farm microbes to access chemical energy. “Each time we look [at ecosystems around methane seeps], we’re finding this more and more,” saysErik Cordesat Temple University in Pennsylvania. He worked with Goffredi on anearlier projectthat found a similar symbiosis in tube worms. The abundance of life found near the seeps “is being fuelled by methane and other chemicals and not by the energy of the sun. That’s pretty amazing,” he says.

Cordes points out that the bacteria also stand to gain by riding along on the sea spiders’ bodies. Not unlike cows on a ranch, they gain protection and access to better pastures. For instance, if a methane seep shifts to a different part of the seafloor, the sea spiders could move the bacteria to the new source. “The sea spiders are keeping them in the perfect habitat,” he says.

Journal reference:PNASDOI: 10.1073/pnas.2501422122

PNASDOI: 10.1073/pnas.2501422122

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There are hundreds of TV apocalypses to choose from, but The Eternaut, a fresh and compelling adaptation of a classic Argentinian comic book series, is the one to pick, saysBethan Ackerley

Juan Salvo (Ricardo Darín) braves the killer snow in Buenos AiresMariano Landet/Netflix

Juan Salvo (Ricardo Darín) braves the killer snow in Buenos Aires

To make good art, you must be specific. Perhaps that is too sweeping a statement – and so rather contradictory – but it is a fundamental principle I live by. It is no good chasing the lowest common denominator in the hope of attracting an audience. Whether it is a song, a painting or a poem, it is the specificities that we latch on to and fall in love with.

This may be why, withhundreds of TV apocalypsesout there,The Eternautis such a breath of fresh air. The new Netflix show adapts aclassic comic book serieswritten by Héctor Germán Oesterheld that was published in 1957 and much adored in his home of Argentina.

It also includes themes from a reboot of the story in 1969 that reflected Oesterheld’s increasingly anti-imperialist views. It is a narrative steeped in real-world violence and paranoia that marked the rise of military dictatorship in Argentina, and it isn’t nearly as well-known globally as it should be.

On a sweltering summer night in Buenos Aires, Juan Salvo (Ricardo Darín) and his friends gather in a basement to play the card game truco. Laughs are shared and whisky is drunk – until a mysterious flurry of snow blankets the city. This is strange enough considering it has only snowed in Buenos Aires three times in recorded history, but the falling flakes kill everyone they touch almost instantly.

Trapped inside, Juan has no idea whether his ex-wife Elena (Carla Peterson) and daughter Clara (Mora Fisz) are alive. He dons a waterproof suit and gas mask, then takes to the streets. Those left behind debate whether to share dwindling resources with fellow survivors, as their neighbourhood grows increasingly panicked.

This is a narrative steeped in real-world violence and paranoia, and it isn’t as well-known as it should be

This is a narrative steeped in real-world violence and paranoia, and it isn’t as well-known as it should be

I haven’t read the original comic, as it is difficult to get hold of in the UK, so I can’t comment on how faithfully it has been adapted. What I can say is that the changes made to fit a modern setting work well, such as Juan’s backstory as a soldier in the Falklands war between the UK and Argentina in 1982. His military experience makes him a natural leader for the survivors, but his unresolved trauma may feed into strange visions he experiences.

The plot ofThe Eternautmay seem similar to those of many post-apocalyptic dramas; that is in no small part due to its enormous influence on this subgenre. But this Spanish-language series still feels fresh because it keeps its Argentinian-ness, rather than relocating the drama to the well-worn streets of New York or London. It is all the better for retaining that specificity, from the architectural to the political.

I knew shamefully little about the history of Argentina before starting the series, nor was I aware that Oesterheld and four of his daughters, two of whom were pregnant, were disappeared by the country’s military dictatorship in 1977. The success of the new series has prompteda renewed searchfor his missing grandchildren, who are likely to have been given to other families as babies. All this sad history makes for a beautifully layered adaptation that feels richer than most of its contemporaries.

There are a few flaws inThe Eternaut: the first three episodes are too slow a burn, while the female characters don’t have much to do. But this is a compelling survival drama that becomes more complex in its second half. And here is one final bonus: having been such a sleeper hit for Netflix, it has already been renewed for a second season.

The MistDirected by Frank DarabontWhen a mist falls on the town of Bridgton, residents must stay inside or face a deadly threat. This Stephen King adaptation deviates from its source with a new ending – and what an ending

I’m Still HereDirected by Walter SallesEternautcomic book writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld’s widow Elsa Sánchez sought justice for deaths linked to Argentina’s military junta. Her story is similar to Eunice Paiva’s, told in this stunning film, whose husband was killed by Brazil’s dictatorship.

Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor at New Scientist. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and anything spooky. Follow her on X @‌inkerley

The art and science of writing science fictionTake your science fiction writing into a new dimension during this weekend devoted to building new worlds and new works of artExplore more

Take your science fiction writing into a new dimension during this weekend devoted to building new worlds and new works of art

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Milky Way viewing is at its best right now, especially if you’re in the southern hemisphere. Here's what to look out for, saysAbigail Beall

The Milky Way, above Uluru in AustraliaStefan Liebermann/mauritius images GmbH/Alamy

The Milky Way, above Uluru in Australia

Stefan Liebermann/mauritius images GmbH/Alamy

Because I’m based in the northern hemisphere, my suggestions of what to look for in the skies can sometimes be skewed towards what we can see from that half of the planet. So, in this month’s column I’ll focus on a feature of our skies that is undoubtedly best when viewed from the southern hemisphere, and particularly at this time of year: the Milky Way.

Every star you can see with the naked eye belongs to our galaxy, which means whenever you see stars, you are seeing within the Milky Way. So when stargazers refer to the Milky Way, they mean the bulge teeming with stars and dust that sit towards the centre of the spiral galaxy. The plane of the Milky Way is offset from the plane of our solar system by about 60 degrees, giving us a side-on view of the inner edge of our spiral arm from where we sit. It looks like an arc when we see it in the sky because we are seeing it on a three-dimensional, curved “surface”.

That view is even better from the southern hemisphere, thanks to Earth’s tilt. Stargazers in the southern half of the planet are tilted towards the centre of the galaxy, whereas in the north, we are facing away from the galaxy’s middle, towards a comparable desert of stars. This means that from the south you can see more of the constellations around the centre of the galaxy, like Centaurus and Sagittarius.

Wherever you live in the world, Milky Way viewing is at its best this time of year because we are on the same side of the sun as it is. But down south, stargazers always see more of the Milky Way because of Earth’s tilt, as well as having the bonus of dark nights at the moment.

According to adecade-old study, a third of the world’s population cannot see the Milky Way. It seems likely that the number has only gone up since then, thanks to increased light pollution. I urge you to find a clear evening with little moonlight. Around 25 June will be perfect, when we’ll have a new moon. Get away from light pollution and allow at least 40 minutes for your eyes adjust to the dark. If you are in the northern hemisphere, you might have to wait until at least midnight for it to be dark enough.

Two of the most memorable stargazing nights of my life happened in the southern hemisphere. The first was at Mount Cook in New Zealand in early June; the second was in Warrumbungle National Park in Australia in April. Both times, I was absolutely blown away by the view of the Milky Way, pictured here above Uluru in Australia.

If you ever get to stargaze in the southern hemisphere, do look for the Milky Way. You might even get to see beyond it to two of our satellite galaxies – the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. Neither is visible from the northern hemisphere, but can be spotted near the southern celestial pole.

Abigail Beall is a features editor at New Scientist and author of The Art of Urban Astronomy. Follow her @abbybeall

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Scary dreams disrupt our sleep and elevate our levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which may have serious consequences for our health over time

There are things we can do to prevent nightmares, such as not watching scary moviesAndrii Lysenko/Getty Images

There are things we can do to prevent nightmares, such as not watching scary movies

Having nightmares on a weekly basis seems to accelerateageing– and could even triple the risk of early death.

“People who have more frequent nightmares age faster and die earlier,” saysAbidemi Otaikuat Imperial College London.

Read moreThe truth behind melatonin and why it may not help you sleep

The truth behind melatonin and why it may not help you sleep

Along with his colleagues, Otaiku analysed more than 183,000 adults, aged 26 to 86, who had taken part in several studies. At the start, the adults self-reported how often they had nightmares, and were then tracked for as little as 1.5 years to as long as 19 years.

The researchers found that those who reported having nightmares on a weekly basis were more than three times as likely to die before they turned 70 than those who said they never or rarely had nightmares.

There is a clear association, says Otaiku, whose team also found nightmare frequency to be a stronger predictor of premature death than smoking, obesity, poor diet or lack of physical activity. He will present the results at theEuropean Academy of Neurology Congress 2025in Helsinki, Finland, on 23 June.

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The team also assessed the participants’ biological age by measuring the length of their telomeres, which are small DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell divides, withshorter ones being linked to premature ageing. This part of the study also included data from about 2400 children, aged between 8 and 10, whose nightmare frequency was reported by their parents. The adults had their biological age additionally assessed via molecular markers known as epigenetic clocks.

Otaiku says the team found a consistent association between frequent nightmares and accelerated ageing across all ages, sexes and ethnicities. “Even in childhood, people who have more frequent nightmares have short telomeres, indicating faster cellular ageing,” he says. Among the adults, the faster biological ageing accounted for about 40 per cent of their heightened mortality risk.

As for why this association occurs, Otaiku says it could stem from two factors. The first is that nightmares cause prolonged high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which has beenlinked to faster cellular ageing. “Nightmares often wake us with our hearts pounding, in a stress reaction more intense than anything we experience when awake,” he says.

The second factor is disrupted sleep, which upsets the body’s overnight cellular repair processes. Sleep disruption has been linked to increases in the risk of various medical conditions, includingheart disease.

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If people want to avoid regular nightmares, there are often easy ways to do it, says Otaiku, including not watching scary movies and seeking treatment for mentalhealthconditions like anxiety.

“It’s an interesting finding and there is lots of biological plausibility,” saysGuy Leschzinerat Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. However, he says, more research is needed to establish a causal link. Nightmares can be associated with a range of medical conditions and medications that people could have as they get older, which could be confounding the results, he says.

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A powerful new telescope in Chile is set to transform astronomy, and its first pictures of stellar nurseries and galaxies have just been unveiled

23 June 2025Last updated 23 June 2025

The Trifid (upper-right) and Lagoon (centre) Nebulae as viewed with the Vera C. Rubin ObservatoryNSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The Trifid (upper-right) and Lagoon (centre) Nebulae as viewed with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory

NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

A pink-and-blue feast of stellar nurseries and a dense cluster of our neighbouring galaxies appear in the first glimpses of space from theVera C. Rubin Observatory, which is set to transform our understanding of the universe with unprecedentedly detailed scans of the night sky.

These images, which were compiled from around 10 hours of observation from the Cerro Pachón mountain in Chile, are tests that illustrate the sorts of shots Rubin is capable of capturing. The telescope’s decade-long mission to observe the night sky each night, known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, will start later this year.

Read moreThe Vera C. Rubin Observatory is about to totally transform astronomy

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is about to totally transform astronomy

The first image (above) contains the Trifid Nebula, the pink-and-blue ball in the upper-right quarter, which is a star-forming region in our galaxy surrounded by thousands of young stars. In the centre of the shot is the Lagoon Nebula, a vast cloud of interstellar gas and dust. To create this image, astronomers combined 678 different pictures taken over 7 hours by Rubin.

A small section of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s total view of the Virgo clusterNSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

A small section of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s total view of the Virgo cluster

NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

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The second image is a close-up of the Virgo cluster, a network of thousands of galaxies that has been known to astronomers for centuries. While its brightest members can be seen with simple telescopes, Rubin’s view shows the entire cluster and the galaxies around it in extreme detail. The full zoomed-out image, which can be seen in the video above, reveals around 10 million galaxies.

These are just 0.5 per cent of the 20 billion galaxies that Rubin will observe over its lifetime, helping shed light on mysteries such as dark matter and the possible existence of another planet in our solar system, known asPlanet Nine.

The telescope’s science team has also built a tool called Skyviewer, which isavailable to the public. It lets viewers explore these extremely high-resolution images by panning around and zooming in on the stars and galaxies.

The world capital of astronomy: ChileExperience the astronomical highlights of Chile. Visit some of the world’s most technologically advanced observatories and stargaze beneath some of the clearest skies on earth.Find out more

Experience the astronomical highlights of Chile. Visit some of the world’s most technologically advanced observatories and stargaze beneath some of the clearest skies on earth.

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