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This week's magazine

22 September 2007

Issue 2622

New Scientist issue 2622 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.

Earth

Histories: The accidental aeronaut

Features
Perfect units: Kissing the kilo goodbye

Technology

Perfect units: Kissing the kilo goodbye

Features
As good as new: Scarless healing

Life

As good as new: Scarless healing

Features
Mind tricks: Six ways to explore your brain

Life

Mind tricks: Six ways to explore your brain

Features

Table of contents

News

Online biometrics flaw gives hackers a 'fake finger'

Technology

Online biometrics flaw gives hackers a 'fake finger'

Imagine being free to forget all of your passwords and use your fingerprint to log in to your online bank, eBay and email accounts. This tantalising vision has suffered a major blow: the scheme that makes it possible could also allow hackers to steal fingerprints and impersonate their victims. Biometric-secured laptops store an image of …

News

Technology

Robotic ray swims rings around propeller craft

News

Technology

Computer game shifts up a gear if kids act bored

News

Technology

End of 'one shape fits all' cycle helmets

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

Wikipedia 2.0 – now with added trust

News

Life

Sniffers' genes dictate if sweat smells sweet

News

Life

Astronauts and cosmonauts react differently to stress

News

Space

Dark matter might be warm matter too

News

Life

Two salmon give birth to a healthy trout

News

Health

Human stem cells from adult cells move a step closer

News

Life

Yeast cells engineered to 'remember' ancestral events

News

Life

Moon's gentle surface could hide life's secrets

News

Life

Radiation in the clear over dinosaur deaths

News

Life

Climate change is killing US forests

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Health

'Cancer-resistant' people lend out their killer cells

News

Earth

Wetter atmosphere points to global warming

News

Life

Bat bugs turn transsexual to avoid stabbing penises

News

Health

Cholera outbreak in Iraq could be first of many

News

Health

Stem cells may breathe new life into lung therapy

News

Life

World's endangered language 'hotspots' mapped

News

Soundbites

News

Earth

The world's top 10 most polluted places

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

Parallel universes make quantum sense

News

Health

Child deaths fall below 10 million for first time

News

Space

Warp drive will kick up some serious radiation

News

Technology

Nuclear weapons plant 'should be rebuilt'

News

Earth

Declawing crabs may not be sustainable

News

Life

Universal DNA database would make us all suspects

News

Space

Chernobyl to be encased in steel

News

Earth

US climate change programme is failing the people

News

Earth

North-West Passage clears of ice for the first time

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.

Comment: Information wants to be free

An unexpected package arrived on my desk earlier this year. The sender did not give a name, and the return address was false. Inside were copies of emails between senior staff at major scientific publishing houses. They were discussing a surprising topic: plans to hire Eric Dezenhall , a public relations guru who has organised …

Opinion

Earth

Let's finish fixing the ozone layer

Opinion

Health

Interview: The halitosis guru

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.

Earth

Histories: The accidental aeronaut

"I have been insensible," said the scientist. "You have," said the aeronaut, "and I too, very nearly." Meteorologist James Glaisher and balloonist Henry Coxwell had just survived a trip into the stratosphere. Squashed into a wicker basket dangling from a huge gas-filled balloon, they had inadvertently risen to an altitude of 11,278 metres – higher …

Features

Technology

Perfect units: Kissing the kilo goodbye

Features

Life

As good as new: Scarless healing

Features

Life

Mind tricks: Six ways to explore your brain

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.

How to get ahead in a cancer research career

WE MAY not have found a way to beat cancer into submission just yet, but more researchers than ever are entering the field to help find a cure. It's not difficult to see why they are choosing such a career. From a biochemical perspective, cancer is a fascinating disease, caused by a complex web of …

Careers

Technology

The word: Deviant research

Regulars

Science essay competition winners 2007

Books & Arts

Review: The Immortalists by David M Friedman

Books & Arts

Review: An angelic riposte to the God Delusion by John Cornwell

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

Impossible instructions IMPOSSIBLE-TO-OBEY quantum instructions continue to flood in, like this one seen by Richard Lambley at a Yates's Wine Lodge: "Please order your food from all till points". Martin Wakefield, however, is the first to report mounting a challenge to such confusing commands. On observing the notice in the booking office at Bishop's Lydeard …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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