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This week's magazine

2 December 2006

Issue 2580

New Scientist issue 2580 cover
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Editor's picks

Understanding the swing of things

Physics

Understanding the swing of things

Features
Hidden Antarctica: Terra incognita

Earth

Hidden Antarctica: Terra incognita

Features
Why bonobos make love, not war

Life

Why bonobos make love, not war

Features
Hidden Antarctica: What lies beneath

Earth

Hidden Antarctica: What lies beneath

Features

Table of contents

News

Would-be rookies to face video gauntlet

Technology

Would-be rookies to face video gauntlet

Written exams are so last century. Concerned that pen-and-paper tests do not offer a realistic assessment of how a soldier will perform in the unpredictable environment of a battlefield, the US army is developing virtual-reality aptitude tests for recruits. "It's about thinking on your feet," says developer Albert Rizzo at the University of Southern California's …

News

Technology

I can't believe it's not leather, says brain scan

News

Earth

Less of a drag for satellites

News

Technology

Why Stradivari was lord of the strings

News

Technology

Uncrewed aerial vehicles: no pilot, no problem?

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Life

Enigmatic relic was eclipse calculator

News

Technology

Quantum computers? Don't hold your breath

News

Earth

Calling a species 'rare' seals its fate

News

Health

Why French red is best for the heart

News

Technology

Borrowers vote with their mice

News

Life

Halal-standard slaughtering doesn't need animals awake

News

Space

Dark partners of the milky way

News

Life

Cancer warning over stem cells

News

Earth

Oceans' 'great dying' led to marine life explosion

News

Life

Just a few genes can keep species apart

News

Earth

How planet Earth turned green

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Health

What will make us sick in 2030?

News

Soundbites

News

Earth

Climate change sceptics lose vital argument

News

Life

Can't remember what you just read? Take a nap

News

Space

Insight: The end of a pioneering Mars probe?

News

Earth

Down-to-earth fix for the carbon crisis

News

Earth

Cotton pest beaten by smart spraying

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Brainy whales get emotional

News

Health

China agrees to ban transplant tourism

News

Health

TB and HIV confusion creates stigma

News

Earth

Extreme weather forecasts are in demand

News

Technology

First regulation for nanoproducts

News

Spy's poisoning needed state support

News

Earth

Fragmented rainforests at risk

News

Humans

Creationism creeps into UK schools

News

Opinion

A licence to carry on polluting?

Earth

A licence to carry on polluting?

Of all the schemes under discussion to stop or limit catastrophic climate change, one of those getting most attention is pollution trading. This popular but little-tried idea lies at the heart of some of the most prominent international approaches to the problem, including the Kyoto protocol and the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS). The …

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Disease plans must expect the unexpected

Opinion

Technology

Editorial: Cloak, dagger, spies and poison

Opinion

Physics

Interview: Physics goes to Hollywood

Opinion

Features

Understanding the swing of things

Physics

Understanding the swing of things

PHYSICIST Al Sievers is playing with a simple chain of pendulums. In his laboratory at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, he kicks the chain into action, and then watches a mystifying performance. Nudge one part of a system like this and the energy should gradually spread out, like ripples on a pond. However, Sievers's …

Features

Earth

Hidden Antarctica: Terra incognita

Features

Life

Why bonobos make love, not war

Features

Earth

Hidden Antarctica: What lies beneath

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.

Scandinavian science: Which country comes out on top?

FINLAND IN 1984, long before the Finnish cellphone company Nokia was a household name, the company's then chief executive Jorma Nieminen observed: "When an inventor in Silicon Valley opens his garage door to show off his latest idea, he has 50 per cent of the world market in front of him. When an inventor in …

Careers

Physics

Death by Black Hole, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Books & Arts

Physics

How Mathematics Happened, by Peter S Rudman

Books & Arts

Earth

The word: Volcano diets

Regulars

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

A whale of a saving MANY of Feedback's UK readers, it transpires, have their electricity supplied by Southern Electric – and,not being ones to miss a trick, they have been quick to email us about a claim in the company's recent customer service leaflet. Here, under the headline "Work wonders in a weekend", customers are …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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