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This week's magazine

2 February 2008

Issue 2641

New Scientist issue 2641 cover
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Editor's picks

Meteorites: How big is safe?

Space

Meteorites: How big is safe?

Features
Super-efficient car to green up the highway

Earth

Super-efficient car to green up the highway

Features
How to grow a glacier

Earth

How to grow a glacier

Features
Are political leanings all in the genes?

Life

Are political leanings all in the genes?

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

Merging photos could improve security screening

Video: Watch a video of the new technique in action Watch a video of the new technique in action IMAGES made by merging several photos of the same face are easier for computer software to recognise than ordinary snapshots. This finding suggests that using "averaged" faces on passports might help security systems make better matches …

News

Technology

Wi-Fi 'co-op' could provide internet for all

News

Space

Comet surprises astronomers with its rocky makeup

News

Life

The circadian clock ticking in your skin

News

Physics

Spooky attraction of DNA from a distance

News

Earth

Tsunami threat hangs over southern Italy

News

Health

Plastic bottles pose health risk if boiled

News

Space

Forget the plane, take the intercity spaceship

News

Life

Word nerds capture fleeting online English

News

Technology

Cellphones could sniff out 'dirty' bombs

News

Technology

Smart pillbox joins the fight against TB

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Earth

Peering beneath glacier might explain speedier slide

News

Life

Bug slime's surprising effect on disease

News

Life

Female reptile spreads labour over nine days

News

Life

Chameleons show their flashy side

News

Earth

Algae hold the key to the biofuel conundrum

News

Space

How to spot a wormhole in space

News

Life

Voices of autism 'silenced' by charity

News

Soundbites

News

Life

Monkeys tune in to your way of thinking

News

Earth

Human sniffles kill endangered chimps

News

Earth

Have humans created a new geological epoch?

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Are male eggs and female sperm on the horizon?

News

Physics

Gene pioneer signs his synthetic DNA creation

News

Physics

Physicists call for heads to roll over cash cuts

News

Earth

Corruption is devouring the world's fish stocks

News

Health

Suicide warning over clinical trials

News

Health

Bomb blasts affect soldiers' mental health

News

Opinion

Commentary: Time to nail inflation

Space

Commentary: Time to nail inflation

IN THE beginning, there was inflation, or so we are told. I am not referring to American politics or the economy, but to a seemingly less contentious arena: the early universe. Inflation – a brief period during which the universe expanded faster than the speed of light – remains the dominant paradigm of cosmology. And …

Opinion

Life

Perspectives: The changing face of terrorism

Opinion

Health

Interview: The Indiana Jones of neurology

Opinion

Life

Let us celebrate Darwin

Opinion

Life

Editorial: Getting ready for same-sex reproduction

Opinion

Editorial: UK physics cuts bite deep

Opinion

Features

Meteorites: How big is safe?

Space

Meteorites: How big is safe?

IT WAS nearly noon, and the tropical sun was beating down on a rugged, remote expanse of Peruvian plains. Villagers from the settlements of Carancas and Desaguadero were going about their business when they suddenly saw a blazing light, as bright as the sun, streak across the sky from the Andes in the north-east towards …

Features

Earth

Super-efficient car to green up the highway

Features

Earth

How to grow a glacier

Features

Life

Are political leanings all in the genes?

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

Review: Irreligion by John Allen Paulos

MATHEMATICIAN John Allen Paulos wades through the classical arguments for the existence of God and systematically refutes them. Much of the book echoes Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion , albeit a bit less impassioned. It is readable and concise, with moments of great logical rigour and dry wit, but I was hoping for a novel …

Books & Arts

Life

Review: What Bugged the Dinosaurs? by George Poinar Jr. and Roberta Poinar

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

Magnets in underpants WE ARE surprised nobody thought of this before: a magnetic therapy for the world's most over-advertised dysfunction. The makers of Magnehance claim that if you are male you can enhance your organ's performance by wearing a flexible neodymium-iron-boron magnet in your underpants. If you are female, the Magnehance website promises that products …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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