The Simonyi Professorship

Geneticist Paolo Gasparini is exploring the ancient Silk Road to find out how important our genes are in shaping what we can taste and what we like (full text available to subscribers)    

Cotard's syndrome is the belief that your brain or body has died. New Scientist has the first media interview with someone who has come out the other side    

After a series of false dawns, the world's first commercial wave farm is to open soon. Will this be a fresh start for the technology?    

A poetic lament on the demise of the exoplanet-hunting space telescope is a reminder that contemplating the universe isn't just for scientists    

Five elements at the heart of the periodic table will never look the same again, following an update to their atomic weights    

A drone monitoring system that tracks flash floods in real time can buy time to escape before the waters hit    

The North Atlantic is now wide enough to create exceptionally high tides, making the rate of the moon's retreat faster now than it was 50 million years ago    

Hypothetical conscious entities that randomly pop into existence may undermine our view of the universe – string theory may banish these Boltzmann brains    

The planet-spotting Kepler telescope seems doomed, but its discoveries along with a new version of the famous Drake equation will sharpen the hunt for ET (full text available to subscribers)    

A raft of new apps and hacks for Google's forthcoming device show us life beyond the smartphone    

The barium levels in a Neanderthal child's molar indicate its mother stopped breastfeeding at 14 months – more than a year earlier than modern humans    

All the latest stories on newscientist.com: watching your mind in action, Drake equation rebooted, new apps and hacks for Google Glass, and more    

The UK's wildlife isn't faring too well, but lost and new species of wild insects and plants are appearing there and elsewhere in Europe    

This brazen, beautiful, evidently male Javan leopard doesn't show obvious signs of stress – despite being recently added to the Red List of endangered species    

We no longer have to wonder what self-awareness looks like, says neuroscientist Daniel Bor – now we can see for ourselves (full text available to subscribers)    

The new coronavirus that emerged in the Arabian Peninsula last year is spreading among people that have had no contact with a known infected case    

There will be more deaths in summer and fewer in winter as climate change begins to bite in New York City. The net effect is not good news    

All the latest stories on newscientist.com: rebuilding the LHC, killer army robots, Oklahoma tornado, sniping the easy way, and more    

The tornado that struck Oklahoma City in the US on Monday was unusually large and powerful, and it came down at a bad time of day    

The first 3D-printed copies of real human hearts will help surgeons prepare to work on the problems of the originals