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This week's magazine

11 December 2004

Issue 2477

New Scientist issue 2477 cover
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Editor's picks

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The curious bones of Peru's gentle giants

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Histories: Farmer Buckley's exploding trousers

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

American booty: The new space prize

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Kepler's supernova is an odd one out

Features
Quantum theory and the ascent of life

Quantum theory and the ascent of life

Features

Table of contents

News

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Evidence fades for killer meteorite impact

THE world's largest mass extinction at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago was probably not caused by a massive asteroid impact, despite recent claims that it was. The case for an impact seemed to be strengthened earlier this year when researchers claimed to have found evidence of meteorite impacts dating back …

News

Smoking is bad for the brain

News

Compact chicken genome has less junk than mammals

News

Lonely whale's song remains a mystery

News

Power of sleep

News

Plant DNA shows speedy changes

News

Coral may grow with global warming

News

Number crunch reveals particle's mass at last

News

Soundbites – Bhopal

News

Polymer injection mends damaged nerves

News

Universe map runs into local difficulty

News

Birds of a feather not related to each other

News

World first sees monkey embryos cloned

News

Fight over access to 'hobbit' bones

News

Caution over sexual arousal patch for women

News

US missile defence system test data withheld

News

Tests to find gene cheats

News

US warms to cold fusion

News

World's rarest bird goes extinct

News

Internet implicated in suicide pacts

News

60 Seconds

News

End of the road for wild bonobos

News

Technology

Invention

News

Technology

Vibrating vacuum cleaners

News

Technology

Confuse those prying eyes

News

Technology

Cellphones spell the end for pocket TVs

News

Life

Light-seeking algae sit on a chip

News

Technology

Colour-coded tags show DNA damage

News

Technology

Cellphone sniffs out dirty bombs

News

Technology

Slick trick could save marine ecosystems

News

Young galaxy evolves before our eyes

News

Glass brings colour to renaissance art

News

Opinion

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Editorial: Drug trials should be out in the open

IT IS unfashionable, but it needs to be said: antidepressant drugs save lives. The brain is a physical machine, and when it goes wrong it is sometimes possible to fix it. That said, antidepressants are rather blunt instruments, and they need close watching. Often they are no better at treating depression than non-drug therapy; sometimes …

Opinion

Editorial: Human tragedies impact on conservation too

Opinion

Humans

Westminster diary

Opinion

Interview: Aleida Guevara, Che's daughter

Opinion

More PR bang for our bucks

Opinion

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The curious bones of Peru's gentle giants

CHARLES MERBS likes nothing better than a pile of old bones. And if the person they belonged to was getting on a bit, so much the better. Merbs is an anthropologist and pathologist who specialises in reconstructing people's occupations and lifestyles from their skeletons – and the older they were when they died the more …

Features

Histories: Farmer Buckley's exploding trousers

Features

American booty: The new space prize

Features

Kepler's supernova is an odd one out

Features

Quantum theory and the ascent of life

Features

More

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Four new tales in science fiction

SCIENCE fiction is abandoning near-future speculation to head for the stars, transporting us to distant reaches of space and time, revelling in the thrill of exploring ideas. The one to follow is Iain M. Banks. His latest book, The Algebraist, is enormous fun, and set far, far in the future. The Mercatoria rules a galactic …

Books & Arts

Take a powder

Books & Arts

Free at last

Books & Arts

Poisoned future

Books & Arts

Are you in it?

Books & Arts

Original thoughts

Books & Arts

Bestsellers – Portland, Oregon

Books & Arts

Regulars

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Feedback

Mystical balls FEEDBACK has been discussing probability with friends. Inevitably, we got onto the subject of lotteries – and particularly whether "systems" could work. A popular suggestion was to pick numbers that hadn't come up recently. Stands to reason, people said: if the draw is fair, eventually each number must come up as often as …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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