Subscribe now

This week's magazine

16 December 2006

Issue 2582

New Scientist issue 2582 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
Subscribe
Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

Editor's picks

The ice age that never was

Earth

The ice age that never was

Features
Recruiting smell for the hard sell

Life

Recruiting smell for the hard sell

Features
Anatomy of a super-Earth

Space

Anatomy of a super-Earth

Features
Deep secrets of the SS Persia

Technology

Deep secrets of the SS Persia

Features
Metacognition: Known unknowns

Life

Metacognition: Known unknowns

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

Nanoscale robots built from DNA

NANO-FACTORIES of the future could be equipped with DNA strands acting as nanoscale robot arms that will pick up and assemble molecular-scale objects. Such long-sought nanorobots are now a step closer thanks to a team led by Nadrian Seeman of New York University in New York City, which has built a machine in which a …

News

Technology

Poisonous paint cleaned in a flash

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

The waste at the heart of the web

News

Technology

Terrorists win in web-savvy stakes

News

Technology

Paperless office? Still over the horizon

News

Earth

NASA overwhelmed by climate data

News

Life

Did the air belong to mammals first?

News

Space

Hint of dark matter caught on camera

News

Life

Oxygen boom led to explosion of complex life

News

Health

Yoghurt improves gut instincts

News

Health

Hope for diabetics with a sweet tooth

News

Life

Love thy neighbour – so you can kill the others off

News

Life

Birth painkillers cut breastfeeding success

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Earth

People, the most powerful earth-movers of all

News

Health

Lab clue into catastrophic drug trial

News

Health

Report backs use of monkeys in research

News

Earth

Marine census delivers benign big catch

News

Health

US citizens ignorant of genetically modified diet

News

Health

Blood risk of vCJD highlighted

News

An ill wind blows for UK turbines

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Intelligent design: The God Lab

News

Life

Why life on Earth was a sure thing

News

Life

HIV delivers a punch to the guts

News

soundbites

News

Space

Was it water, water everywhere on Mars?

News

Earth

Chilling prospects for Winter Olympics

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.

Health

Our futile war on cancer

NEXT week will mark the 35th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, the opening salvo of the US government's battle to eradicate cancer. In those 35 years, the US has spent tens of billions of dollars on cancer research, and we are frequently told that this has won us significant progress. Look at the data, …

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Would you want to know if you had vCJD?

Opinion

Life

Editorial: It's still about religion

Opinion

Life

Interview: Purveyors of mystery

Opinion

Features

The ice age that never was

Earth

The ice age that never was

There was a chill across the world, and it wasn't just the cold war. From the 1940s to the mid-70s, the planet seemed to be in the grip of a global cooling. For a while, almost every outbreak of extreme weather was blamed on it. Some members of a new scientific discipline, climatology, predicted a …

Features

Life

Recruiting smell for the hard sell

Features

Space

Anatomy of a super-Earth

Features

Technology

Deep secrets of the SS Persia

Features

Life

Metacognition: Known unknowns

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

Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds, by David W Steadman

WHEN I was a kid, everyone thought that the Pacific Ocean islands had never had many bird species, and that those that had been lost died at the hands of European sailors and their cats, rats and goats. This book shows how wrong we were. The islands once abounded with birds, and their extinction was …

Books & Arts

Technology

Designing Interactions, by Bill Moggridge

Books & Arts

The word: Plagiarism

Regulars

Life

Review: Cyberspaces of Everyday Life, by Mark Nunes

Books & Arts

Technology

Trails that redraw the map of America

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

Devil of a disclaimer LEGAL warnings and disclaimers on web pages must be among the most widely ignored texts in the history of human communication – which gives their composers a certain creative freedom. We particularly like the one that Dik Allison found at www.derbyshireguide.co.uk , which reads as follows: This information is provided to …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop