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This week's magazine

11 August 2007

Issue 2616

New Scientist issue 2616 cover
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Editor's picks

Medieval hunters exterminated Britain's lynx

Earth

Medieval hunters exterminated Britain's lynx

Features
America's most ancient mariners

Earth

America's most ancient mariners

Features
Evolution's greatest mistakes

Life

Evolution's greatest mistakes

Features
Artificial soil: quick and dirty

Earth

Artificial soil: quick and dirty

Features
Sounds in space

Space

Sounds in space

Features

Table of contents

News

Drill into asteroids to stop them hitting Earth

Space

Drill into asteroids to stop them hitting Earth

WE'VE been told to nuke 'em, tug 'em and even paint 'em. But burrowing into killer asteroids on a collision course with Earth might be the best way to deflect them. In 2029, the asteroid Apophis will pass near Earth, and our planet's gravity may then put it on collision course for when it comes …

News

Life

Can a government remotely detect a terrorist's thoughts?

News

Technology

Robots to revive dying dance routines

News

Technology

Security upgrade for 'anonymity network'

News

Technology

When to call and when to email

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

Virtual bat sonar could help visually impaired

News

Earth

Frequent hurricanes decimate sea turtle beaches

News

Life

Organ removal gives female mice a masculine thrust

News

Life

Computer model explains toddlers' chatting

News

Earth

'Sunshade' for global warming could cause drought

News

Space

Newton's mirror experiment gets updated

News

Life

Echolocation took whales to the depths

News

Space

Mystery of Saturn's G ring solved

News

Health

Bad posture could raise your blood pressure

News

Earth

Invasive vine is a prodigious polluter

News

Earth

Global warming and cooling linked to the sunspot cycle

News

Health

Safety fears over laughing gas

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Life

Fossilised jaw muddies the picture of human ancestry

News

Soundbites

News

Physics

Predicting change, not a moment too soon

News

Health

Plastics chemical is harmful, says expert panel

News

Earth

Foot and mouth vaccines: a double-edged sword

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Who's the daddy? US sperm banks must be better regulated

News

Earth

Monsoon floods devastate South Asia

News

Health

Virus-specific drug approved for HIV

News

Earth

Energy-curbing bill passes Congress

News

Life

Abstinence programmes don't stop HIV

News

Space

Phoenix on its way to Mars

News

Health

Toddlers prefer branded foods

News

Life

Yangtze river dolphin is 'probably extinct'

News

Opinion

Rules for new drug development need a serious overhaul

Health

Rules for new drug development need a serious overhaul

TO AN American public weary of being told that the drugs they are taking are dangerous, the recent controversy over the diabetes drug Avandia will have come as little surprise. Health experts want the medicine withdrawn after various studies suggested it increased the risk of heart failure and other illnesses. Last week a Food and …

Opinion

Technology

It's time to fit all bridges with sensors

Opinion

Life

Determining free will

Opinion

Life

Interview: confronting drugs in sport

Opinion

Features

Medieval hunters exterminated Britain's lynx

Earth

Medieval hunters exterminated Britain's lynx

Most people would have thrown them out straight away. But when Yorkshire hill farmer Tom Lord inherited boxes and boxes of dusty old animal bones – amassed over more than a century by a succession of intrepid cave explorers – he resisted the temptation. Instead, he spent the next 30 years making sense of them. …

Features

Earth

America's most ancient mariners

Features

Life

Evolution's greatest mistakes

Features

Earth

Artificial soil: quick and dirty

Features

Space

Sounds in space

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: Boojum

IMAGINE a hedgehog tottering across a road to a grass verge. On reaching the boundary, it relaxes and goes to sleep. There you have it. In figurative, everyday language, that's a boojum. The reality is a tad more complicated because the hedgehog is really a "single-point topological defect" and the grass is the "A-phase of …

Regulars

Life

Review: The Origins of Man by Douglas Palmer

Books & Arts

Review: The Cause of Mosquitoes' Sorrow by Surendra Verma

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

Fruitloopery indicators IN A piece about "Energized 5D Sound CDs" not so long ago, we suggested that, along with "vibrational energies", combinations of the words "subtle", "energy", "quantum" and "physics" were sure-fire indicators that texts mentioning them were fruitloopery deluxe (10 June, 2006) . We feel it's time to add "DNA" to the list. Take …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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