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This week's magazine

13 January 2007

Issue 2586

New Scientist issue 2586 cover
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Editor's picks

Histories: George Poe's cure for death

Life

Histories: George Poe's cure for death

Features
Engaging photons in light conversation

Technology

Engaging photons in light conversation

Features
A bank for wind power

Earth

A bank for wind power

Features
Pharaohs from the stone age

Life

Pharaohs from the stone age

Features
The ancestor within all creatures

Life

The ancestor within all creatures

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.

Soundbites

"It exterminates thousands and forces them not to eat or drink, and they will have to evacuate their homes without taking anything with them, until we can finally purge them." Saddam Hussein , recorded on a tape played on Monday in Baghdad at the trial of his cousin, "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majeed, who is accused …

News

Life

Amniotic fluid supplies 'repair kit' for later life

News

Technology

How to leak a secret and not get caught

News

Life

A subtle key to human diversity

News

Life

Memories are made of this molecule

News

Physics

Gravity gets a quantum boost

News

Earth

Cold facts about ancient eruptions

News

Technology

Robot learns to play dirty Scrabble

News

Technology

Airbus eyes iris scanner for pilots

News

Technology

Both sides backed in hi-def DVD war

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Earth

Arctic robots to get first taste of 'alien' life

News

Earth

Setback for safe storage of nuclear waste

News

Life

Best dressed women have babies on their mind

News

Life

How genetic differences keep us together

News

Life

For best fossil DNA, leave it in the ground

News

Health

Send in the clots to kill off cancer

News

Earth

Barn swallows get broody while world warms

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Space

Speeding dwarfs upset galactic family picture

News

Life

It pays to be a noisy gene

News

Earth

Insight: Oil giants' money fuels a climate of suspicion

News

Physics

The Higgs particle just got lighter

News

Space

A 3D look at dark matter

News

Physics

Lightning balls created in the lab

News

Health

Forever young: Operating in whose interest?

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Perils of freedom for released criminals

News

Tall creationist tales from the Grand Canyon

News

Life

Poets have always loved a waist line

News

Health

Beverage industry funds bias research findings

News

Earth

Crazy world weather blows hot and cold

News

Opinion

The curse of being different

Life

The curse of being different

THE achievement gap between white and non-white students – indeed between any marginalised group and the mainstream – is one of the most worrying and deep-seated problems in the US educational system. It is conspicuous from pre-school to college and has resisted decades of massive and costly educational reforms. The problem stems in part from …

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Donning dark matter glasses

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Keeping a patient forever young

Opinion

Life

Tackling the problem of free will

Opinion

Earth

Interview: Win or lose, it's fighting back that counts

Opinion

Features

Histories: George Poe's cure for death

Life

Histories: George Poe's cure for death

One spring evening in 1908 three doctors stood before an expectant audience in the library of the Medical Society of the County of Kings in Brooklyn, New York. Before they began their demonstration, they needed one last thing. "Fetch a stray dog," they cried, tossing a quarter to an urchin outside. The boy returned with …

Features

Technology

Engaging photons in light conversation

Features

Earth

A bank for wind power

Features

Life

Pharaohs from the stone age

Features

Life

The ancestor within all creatures

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.

Physics

The word: Yocto

IT SOUNDS like a creature from a sci-fi movie, but yocto is both more and less exotic than that: it's a numerical prefix denoting an extremely small number. To save writing all those zeros when noting very small or large amounts, scientists devised some short-cut prefixes. But while we've all heard of a milligram (a …

Regulars

Life

Birds of Northern South America, by Robin Restall

Books & Arts

The Seven Secrets of How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist, by James Longuski

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

Alien competition runners up HERE, as promised, are 10 runner-up entries in the Feedback New Year competition. We asked entrants to compose a text message in no more than 160 characters, sent by an alien who has just arrived on our planet. Some of last week's winning contributors sent more than one entry that we …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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