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This week's magazine

13 May 2006

Issue 2551

New Scientist issue 2551 cover
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Editor's picks

The stuff of beams: Building with light

Technology

The stuff of beams: Building with light

Features
Bird flu: Animal apocalypse?

Life

Bird flu: Animal apocalypse?

Features
The new incredibles: Enhanced humans

Life

The new incredibles: Enhanced humans

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.

Technology

Gamers help the blind get the picture

Gamers now have the perfect excuse to sit in front of their computers all day: they can perform a public service. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have designed an online game that aims to harness its players' brainpower to help make websites more accessible to blind people. Visually impaired people often use …

News

Technology

Cellphone antennas pinpoint the rain

News

Technology

Drummers tune in to robot rhythm

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

'Mashup' websites are a hacker's dream come true

News

Technology

Porous plastic protects coastlines from erosion

News

Technology

Superconduction at the flick of a switch

News

Life

Pregnancy may be fertile ground for acupuncturists

News

Earth

Remnants of the early solar system are lying at our feet

News

Life

Songbirds listen out for half their brood

News

Life

Diving insects use buoyancy vests

News

Life

Are you an extreme dreader?

News

Health

Why eating less can be the key to a long life

News

Life

Daydreams are different in autistic minds

News

Space

The death rite of massive stars

News

Health

Plastics link to 'macho' female mice

News

Health

Red wine may fight deafness

News

Space

How Neptune snagged a passing moon

News

Life

Muggings were rife in New Stone Age

News

Earth

Exquisite fossils could be early missing link

News

This week 24 years ago

News

Space

Dunes are Titan's weather vane

News

Life

Was our universe made for us or not?

News

Technology

Can computer models replace animal testing?

News

Life

Social-climber wasps put their feet up

News

Soundbites

News

Earth

Tsunami still pollutes Sri Lankan wells

News

Health

Artificial sweetener given the all clear

News

Earth

A future with no bananas?

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Sugary drinks leave US schools

News

Earth

Maize in global gene bank crisis

News

Technology

Energy gap, what energy gap?

News

Space

NASA announces its 'Lunar Lander Challenge'

News

Animal activists flee UK clampdown

News

Opinion

How to kick the oil habit

Technology

How to kick the oil habit

THE world is running out of oil. That much is scarcely in doubt, even if it is less clear just how long it will take. Nowhere is this predicament felt more keenly than in the US, where consumers are having to pay a record $3 for a gallon of gasoline. This might seem a pittance …

Opinion

Health

Autism: The search for Steven

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Crying wolf over bird flu?

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Fight fat, dump school sodas

Opinion

Earth

Mikhail Gorbachev: My route to green

Opinion

Features

The stuff of beams: Building with light

Technology

The stuff of beams: Building with light

COLIN BAIN hands me goggles as protection against the blinding power of his infrared laser, then pulls back the heavy blackout curtains that hide his experiment. This is where Bain makes matter. In front of us is a solid metal worktop covered with lenses, prisms and mirrors. Bain's laser sits at one end, poised to …

Features

Life

Bird flu: Animal apocalypse?

Features

Life

The new incredibles: Enhanced humans

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.

Life

The word: Gelatology

A PRIEST, a horse and a gelatologist walk into a bar... OK, while this is clearly the start of a terrible joke, gelatology – the study of laughter – is a serious business. Laughter researchers, gelatologists, are beginning to work out why we laugh. They have uncovered how our brains "get" a joke (it is …

Regulars

Zen-Brain Reflections by James Austin

Books & Arts

Atoms and Alchemy by William Newman

Books & Arts

Health

Allergy: The history of a modern malady by Mark Jackson

Books & Arts

New Zealand's blossoming biotech sector

Careers

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

I'll get my coat... A READER who understandably wishes to remain anonymous sends us this intriguing story about "Dr X", the head of department in the forensic laboratory where he works. One Monday morning, Dr X noticed a patch of dark purple-brown mould on a spare white laboratory coat hanging on a stand near the …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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