Founded in 1956, New Scientist is the world’s most popular weekly science and technology magazine. The magazine’s teams in London and around the world cover international news from a scientific standpoint and ask the biggest-picture questions about life, the universe, and what it means to be human.

We’re offering a learning and development opportunity open to anyone. Successful applicants will begin a 6-month internship in October. The internship will be based in our High Street Kensington office, London.

Internship positions: two news interns and one video intern

● News interns will receive one to cone mentoring (指导) from an experienced journalist and on-the-job training in news and features writing, with your work published both online and in print.

● Our video intern will be based in our video team, You’ll learn how to produce scientific videos from idea to publication. You’ll have the opportunity to come with us on shoots and be trained in camerawork. You’ll also receive training in news writing and subediting (编辑校订).

Entry requirements:

● You will have completed a science, technology, engineering, mathematics or computing degree by the start of the internship.

● You have a demonstrable interest in writing, video editing or journalism.

Other important information:

● Please submit 200 words explaining how you meet these requirements, which internship position you are applying for, and why you are the right person for this internship.

● Please write an article on a recent scientific discovery, between 500 and 800 words (for news intern applications) or create a 2～3-minute video on a scientific topic that interests you (for video intern applications).

Please send your application to Tashan Chong-Kan-t, chongkan@dmgmedia.co.uk before July 12!

The email subject line caught my attention: “Still interested in the Cutlass?” Mom’s car. My finger paused over the computer mouse.

Mom’s 1971 green Cutlass car was a timeless beauty. My favorite childhood memories were of us riding in it. Mom always wore her big sunglasses, with a scarf tied carefully over her head to protect her salon-styled hair. I felt I was riding with a Hollywood star.

These memories were all I had left of Mom. She’d died when I was only 15. Many of her things were given away or sold. The Cutlass had been bought by a collector in Michigan. I’d connected with him years before, asking if he might be interested in selling. He’d politely demurred.

Still, I couldn’t let go of the idea of one day owning it, especially after I got married and became a father. With my daughter, Arden, now 11 and my son, Hudson, now 7. I wished my mom was there to see us all. I told my kids stories about their grandmother. But a story wasn’t the same as a real connection. I’d often imagined that a ride in Mom’s car would change all of that.

Now here was this email. I opened it. “Several people have asked to purchase that classic car.” it read. “It’s time to sell, but I wanted to give you the first option to buy if you’re still interested,” “Absolutely!” I typed.

The day when I drove to check on the car, the collector passed me a small bag. “Mom’s sunglasses!” I cried as I opened the bag.

Finally, the car was transported to my house. My wife took pictures of the “first ride” as the kids climbed in and sat where I had sat so many years ago with my mom behind the wheel. I brought Mom’s glasses into the car with me.

“Can I wear them?” Arden asked, as I started the car.

“You bet,” I said.

I knew Mom loved that.

Most farms are located in rural areas and are irrigated by freshwater. Now, a startup in Scotland is farming near the coast and using seawater to grow crops. Using the water of the ocean for irrigation can be a game changer for a hungry world.

Food production needs to increase by 70 percent in the next 30 years to keep up with population increases. Freshwater only makes up two percent of all the water of the planet, and it is growing scarcer in many places like Scotland due to climate change.

Now, Seawater Solutions, a Glasgow-based non-governmental organization founded in 2017, is using saltwater instead of freshwater to grow crops. Co-founder and CEO Yanik Nyberg lived and worked in areas of Africa and Asia that have been negatively impacted by water scarcity and global warming. Seawater Solutions was created to address the issues of coastal communities that face the urgent concern of land salinization (盐渍化), according to the organization’s website.

In an interview, Nyberg told The Nation that he came up with the idea of redeveloping degraded farmland and turning it into artificial wetland ecosystems that use seawater and grow plants that can tolerate the salt, “It’s a relatively simple concept,” he said. “Seawater is introduced to coastal farmland, where naturally salt-tolerant crops are grown. These crops store massive amounts of carbon and are extremely nutritious, being called ‘superfoods’ across the world.”

The new farmland consists of artificial saltwater marshes (沼泽) that have seawater pumped over them. Then the ecosystem will be used for saline plants, which can be used for food, biofuels, sea-plant animal foods, and as raw materials for cosmetics.

Downhill Farm in Ayrshire, Scotland uses water from the Atlantic Ocean to grow crops. Seawater Solutions also has projects in Ghana, Malawi, Namibia and Spain, with more in the planning stage. While growing crops in seawater is a hard sell, it is an environmentally sound way to meet the food demands of a growing world population.

US scientists have found that the spirit of giving may start a lot earlier than previously thought. This follows their amazing discovery that even hungry babies are willing to give up a tasty snack to help others, spontaneously (自发地) sharing their food with strangers in need from the age of around 19 months.

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences carried out a study to see if infants (幼儿) would help unknown adults interacting with them by showing them a delicious-looking piece of fruit. And they also went further. Would these very young kids be willing to give up the food to others, even at a cost to themselves?

“We think altruism (利他主义) is important to study. We adults help each other when we see another in need and we do this even if there is a cost to the self. So we tested the roots of this in infants,” explains Rodolfo Cortes Barragan of the University of Washington team.

In their first experiment, which involved 48 infants that were only around 19 months old, the researchers began by showing each child a piece of child-friendly fruit. They then either threw the fruit gently onto the floor within the infants’ reach without showing any emotion, and didn’t try to get it back, or alternatively, pretended to accidentally drop the fruit onto the floor before reaching for it unsuccessfully.

The team found that the display of reaching for the fruit, which showed the adults’ desire for it, could get a helping response in the infants, with over half picking it up to give it back to the adults. But only four percent did that when the adults had been emotionless.

The second experiment was timed right before their regular snacks to ensure the children were hungry. But surprisingly, the results almost mirrored those of the first experiment!

These findings led the team to conclude that kids have a tendency to spontaneously help strangers. They believed that this isn’t an ability that’s learned. However, they did point out that early social experiences can shape altruism.