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This week's magazine

21 April 2007

Issue 2600

New Scientist issue 2600 cover
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Editor's picks

Histories: Scars of a catastrophe

Earth

Histories: Scars of a catastrophe

Features
Mind-altering media

Life

Mind-altering media

Features
Africa's cassava comeback

Earth

Africa's cassava comeback

Features
Teenagers trapped in the wrong body

Life

Teenagers trapped in the wrong body

Features
Foolproof fingerprints: the counterfeit killers

Technology

Foolproof fingerprints: the counterfeit killers

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.

Earth

Proving food's ethical origin

You know the price of a jar of fair-trade coffee before you reach the checkout, but how can you be sure of its ethical cost? Now techniques are being developed to tag goods with information about their entire production history, to reassure consumers that what they are buying has genuinely been ethically made. The Fair …

News

Earth

Cellphones: a pollution risk

News

Space

Twin star clue to Red Square puzzle

News

Technology

Creepy-crawly robot to mend a broken heart

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Life

Perfect clones, to the last computer-generated wrinkle

News

Technology

Poachers to blame for patent delays

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Life

Monkey genome springs surprise for human origins

News

Life

Flying in V-formation gives best view for least effort

News

Earth

Leaf loss adds to frogs' woes

News

Health

Aspirin may protect against cancer

News

Health

Gene makes some people fatter

News

Earth

Fossilised 'fern' reveals prehistoric treetops

News

Life

Chimps are the most refined ape of all

News

Life

If you're driving, stay off the phone

News

Earth

Soybean boom spells bad news for climate

News

Life

Extreme bacteria run chemistry of life in reverse

News

Soundbites

News

Physics

Death of 'sterile neutrino' raises new spectre

News

Earth

Biofuel issues rekindle Berkeley's radical flame

News

Health

Insight: Questions follow reports of stem cell diabetes cure

News

Space

Millions spent, but was gravity result worth it?

News

Schools urged into divisive drug crackdown

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

Biofuel's dirty little secret

News

Life

WHO must focus on mother-to-child HIV transmission

News

Space

Duff software patch sealed Mars probe's fate

News

Health

Beat polio now - it will be cheaper

News

Health

Infection blunder revealed at animal testing lab

News

Life

Chernobyl alert over birth defects

News

Earth

Rampant tourism leaves Galapagos in big trouble

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.

Earth

Pastures new may destroy the planet

SUSTAINABLE development is the mantra of the 21st century. It is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use. This is especially true in agriculture, …

Opinion

Life

Editorial: In denial about on-screen violence

Opinion

Interview: Winning the war for Iraq's dead

Opinion

Features

Histories: Scars of a catastrophe

Earth

Histories: Scars of a catastrophe

Fifteen thousand years ago, a vast lake sprawled through the valleys of what is now western Montana. Known as Lake Missoula, it was created when a lobe of ice moving south from Canada blocked the Clark Fork river, which drains much of the region. Then, one day, the ice dam broke. Water roared down the …

Features

Life

Mind-altering media

Features

Earth

Africa's cassava comeback

Features

Life

Teenagers trapped in the wrong body

Features

Technology

Foolproof fingerprints: the counterfeit killers

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: Paradoxical undressing

STRANDED on a freezing mountainside, wouldn't you welcome a rescuer's thermal blanket? Perhaps not. Your first instinct might be to throw it aside, and you might even have removed some of your own clothing before the rescue team got to you. Paradoxical undressing certainly lives up to its name. “Your first instinct might be to …

Regulars

Earth

How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, by Chris Goodall

Books & Arts

Life

Making Up the Mind: How the brain creates our mental world, by Chris Frith

Books & Arts

Bioscience careers in North-west England

Careers

Through a pinhole lightly

Books & Arts

Earth

Review: Dirt: The erosion of civilizations by David Montgomery

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

Phone phobia MARTIN GARDINER writes to tell us that he was wondering about phone phobia – as one does – so he visited changethatsrightnow.com , the website that offers advice on how to "live free of fears, phobias and anxiety attacks". The site defines phone phobia as "a persistent, abnormal and unwarranted fear of telephones". …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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