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This week's magazine

7 April 2007

Issue 2598

New Scientist issue 2598 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.

Life

Histories: Have prodigy, will travel

Features
Turn genes on, turn diseases off

Health

Turn genes on, turn diseases off

Features
Packaging – unwrapped

Earth

Packaging – unwrapped

Features
How many things can you do at once?

Life

How many things can you do at once?

Features
Cannibal star: first sighting of a celestial glutton

Space

Cannibal star: first sighting of a celestial glutton

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

Electronic threads weave smarter fabric

A TRANSISTOR made only of fibre is opening the way to intelligent fabrics – to make clothes that could monitor the vital signs of athletes or rescue workers, for example, or simply be a fashion statement. Existing electronic clothing usually consists of switches or lights woven into fabric and controlled by plug-in silicon circuits. Now …

News

Life

Computer-vision sees animals like humans do

News

Space

Space, the final war zone?

News

Earth

Bigger is dirtier, even for hybrid vehicles

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

A slimming treatment for artificial lungs

News

Life

Bonobos join forces to outdo chimps

News

Life

How to give a rat a death wish

News

Earth

Scallops off menu after rise of rays

News

Life

Beetle's beauty lies in imperfection

News

Earth

Global warming will make Earth spin faster

News

Life

More IVF keeps the birth rate up

News

Life

Ecstasy really does unleash the love hormone

News

Life

Wasps' good bacteria could help us

News

Health

Fight a flu pandemic by keeping people apart

News

Space

Superconductors inspire quantum test for dark energy

News

Health

Man's pig-cell implants still active 10 years on

News

Health

Don't know your blood group? Doesn't matter

News

Soundbites

News

Earth

Snow goose invasion points to Arctic thaw

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Earth

'Safe' heavy metals hit fish senses

News

Earth

Energy auditors to lead green initiative

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

Billions at risk from wheat super-blight

News

Earth

Canada's seal pups in double trouble

News

Health

HIV cash misspent on abstinence education

News

Life

Ewes get pregnant after uterus transplantation

News

Physics

Particle collider setback as magnets fail

News

Earth

Fatal tsunami strikes the Solomon Islands

News

Health

Stem cells create human heart-valve tissue

News

Technology

Tireless, reliable physio-robots take on stroke paralysis

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.

Life

Genocide: When compassion fails

SINCE February 2003, hundreds of thousands of people in the Darfur region of western Sudan have been murdered by government-supported local militias, and millions forced to flee their burnt-out villages for the dubious safety of refugee camps. It is genocide by any definition, yet the world looks away. The events in Darfur are the latest …

Opinion

Earth

Editorial: Rusting defences in the battle for wheat

Opinion

Health

Editorial: What shall we do with cells today?

Opinion

Life

Turning point: A secret garden

Opinion

Earth

Interview: Feral and free

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.

Life

Histories: Have prodigy, will travel

Zerah Colburn was not exactly the reigning intellect of Cabot, Vermont. Still only five years old, and with just six weeks' schooling, he had not yet learned to read either letters or numbers. Left to amuse himself in his father's carpentry workshop one day in August 1810, he was playing among the wood shavings when …

Features

Health

Turn genes on, turn diseases off

Features

Earth

Packaging – unwrapped

Features

Life

How many things can you do at once?

Features

Space

Cannibal star: first sighting of a celestial glutton

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

Evolution for Everyone, by David Sloan Wilson

DO WE need another popular book on evolution? That 54 per cent of adults in the US believe we did not evolve from earlier species is reason enough, but David Sloan Wilson's book also has much to teach those of us who are already convinced. His aim is to show that evolution can transform our …

Books & Arts

Physics

The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Books & Arts

Life

The Deep: The extraordinary creatures of the abyss, by Claire Nouvian

Books & Arts

Space

The word: Iridium flare

Regulars

Space

Review: Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle

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

Crackpots or hoaxers? A RECENT round of web surfing raised an internet dilemma: how do you tell the crackpots from the hoaxers? The web is generously sprinkled with sites offering explanations for life, the universe and everything that make Douglas Adams's "42" seem quite rational in comparison. If you're a bit rushed, you can find …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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