Can computers count properly?

It’s time for another edition of New Scientist’s weekly round-up of the best stories in science and technology. Today we’ve got everything from snakes to speedy internet connections, so get stuck in.

Teaching computers a new way to count could make numbers more accurate

It is a little-known fact that computers can struggle when it comes to handling numbers. That’s because very large or small numbers can take up a lot of memory, which is why programmers use a trick called floating-point arithmetic to cut them down to size. This comes with its own problems though, as floating-point numbers aren’t entirely accurate, so now a pair of computer scientists have proposed a new fix.

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

If, like me, you live in Britain, you’ve probably turned the heating on at this point in the year as temperatures start to fall. It turns out that humans aren’t the only ones to benefit from this though, as a invasive species of snake has been found to nestle in walls and attics to survive the British cold.

6G phone networks could be 9000 times faster than 5G

I recently upgraded my broadband to a fibre connection and am now getting speeds of up to 900 megabits per second, which I thought was pretty fast, but it turns out that future wireless transfers could be far faster. Researchers have demonstrated this with a data transmission of 938 gigabits per second, which is more than 9000 times typical 5G speeds in the UK.

More from New Scientist

• Seven species of frog that make Star Trek-like sound effects have been named after captains from the franchise
• Our magazine cover story this week is about the free-energy principle, an idea from neuroscience that could help explain, well, everything
• Want to brush up on your quantum physics? Sign up for our event in London next month

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Jacob Aron, News Editor