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This week's magazine

3 November 2007

Issue 2628

New Scientist issue 2628 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: Dynamite in Paradise

Features
Top 10 bizarre experiments

Top 10 bizarre experiments

Features
Evolution: Survival of the selfless

Life

Evolution: Survival of the selfless

Features
Quantum untanglement: Is spookiness under threat?

Physics

Quantum untanglement: Is spookiness under threat?

Features

Table of contents

News

Let airport staff 'kill' baddies for better security

Life

Let airport staff 'kill' baddies for better security

Here's a novel way to improve airport security: get baggage screeners to blast video game baddies in their spare time. That's the message from Mathias Fleck and Stephen Mitroff of Duke University at Durham, North Carolina, who have discovered that playing action computer games gives people a sharper eye for finding target objects on a …

News

Earth

Chemical weapons create toxic waste nightmare

News

Life

Parasitic trick helps fetus avoid attack

News

This week 50 years ago

News

Life

Special blood lets Tibetans live the high life

News

Life

Raptors roamed in packs

News

Space

Magnetic fields may stop young stars self-destructing

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Space

Supercomputers zoom in on the universe

News

Life

Smile-hunting game makes for happy workers

News

Earth

Hydrogen power lights up the seas

News

Life

Computers called in to save Chinese opera

News

Life

Slap on the edelweiss for the ultimate sunscreen

News

Life

Solved: The mystery of how AIDS left Africa

News

Earth

Plastic-collecting worms return pollutants to sender

News

Life

Placebo boost is a conundrum for sports regulators

News

Soundbites

News

Health

Is herpes making Alzheimer's worse?

News

Earth

'Humanity at risk' from ecological debt

News

Life

Fooling yourself is an ancient and useful trait

News

Earth

Ancient sea mud records supernova blast

News

Health

Ten ways to avoid cancer

News

Earth

Let California burn, say experts

News

Life

Equation can spot a failing neighbourhood

News

Life

Is H5N1 bird flu endemic in Europe?

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

'Spitting' black holes may be key to cosmic mysteries

News

Life

Scientist distances himself from creationist claims

News

Earth

Bush administration's nuclear plan criticised

News

Space

Lunar lander competition ends with a bang

News

Earth

White House in climate-censorship row

News

Space

Meteorites fail to make a splash at auction

News

Earth

One third of primate species on the brink

News

Opinion

Comment: America's lost children

Health

Comment: America's lost children

FOR more than a century, the infant mortality rate – the proportion of babies who die before their first birthday – has stood as a primary measure not just of health, but of a nation or region's economic and social functioning. Industrialised countries with stable governments, high employment and adequate health and welfare systems do …

Opinion

Life

Editorial: What's for dinner?

Opinion

Life

Editorial: Survival of the nicest

Opinion

Life

Perspectives: Are we becoming gods?

Opinion

Life

Interview: The hunter and the doomsday virus

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: Dynamite in Paradise

In the 1870s, New Guinea was one of the last unexplored places on Earth. Since its discovery by Europeans in 1545, visiting traders and missionaries had stuck to the coast – and with good reason. The densely forested interior was stalked by tropical diseases and home to hostile headhunters. For Luigi d'Albertis, an Italian hunter …

Features

Top 10 bizarre experiments

Features

Life

Evolution: Survival of the selfless

Features

Physics

Quantum untanglement: Is spookiness under threat?

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.

Review: Beyond the Black Box, by George Bibel

IF, DESPITE the green backlash against aviation, you still plan to fly regularly, don't read this book. That's not a criticism: a book on the physics behind air crash investigations was never likely to be a pretty read. The 1001 potential points of failure in an aircraft – including structural failure, exploded engines, fuel starvation, …

Books & Arts

Alternative Medicine? A history by Roberta Bivins

Books & Arts

Life

The Word: Hellbender

Regulars

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

Content-free marketing EXTRAORDINARY claims aimed at gullible people are distressingly common. Less common are utterly incomprehensible claims aimed at... well, who knows? Andrew Hemsley finds P.W.B. Special One Drop Liquid unusual in that it is almost impossible to work out what it's supposed to do. According to www.tinyurl.com/388k4n , it "possesses a most extraordinary property. …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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