Subscribe now

This week's magazine

5 April 2008

Issue 2650

New Scientist issue 2650 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
Subscribe
Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

Editor's picks

Histories: How cowboys choked the American West

Earth

Histories: How cowboys choked the American West

Features
Impossible physics: Never say never

Physics

Impossible physics: Never say never

Features
Nautilus: Chambers of secrets

Life

Nautilus: Chambers of secrets

Features
Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

Life

Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

Features
Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?

Life

Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?

Features

Table of contents

News

Stretchy chips to monitor the brain

Technology

Stretchy chips to monitor the brain

BENDY, stretchable computer chips have been made that could one day allow gadgets to be integrated with clothing, or even take electronics to the surface of the human brain. "We'd like to have an electric circuit that could wrap around part of the brain and detect signal patterns to predict the onset of a seizure …

News

Technology

Software kills squealing gig feedback

News

Earth

Plug-in hybrid cars ready to roll in California

News

Technology

Social networking sites to go 3D

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

The rise of the emotional robot

News

Earth

Bumper harvests get endangered parrots laying

News

Earth

How Earth's poles went walkabout

News

Health

Losing one gene brings out a mouse's wild side

News

Life

Preserved cellulose could reveal past alien life

News

Health

Single virus gene may cause obesity

News

Life

Eavesdropping monkeys spy on copulating neighbours

News

Space

People power dents cosmic 'axis of evil'

News

Earth

Gadget recycling may be poisoning China's children

News

Health

Genetic mutation is behind cystic fibrosis

News

Earth

Underwater ears warn of hurricane strength

News

Space

Did sound once travel at light speed?

News

Life

Web 'art' may help keep spiders fit

News

Earth

Early humans died in Pompeii-like eruption

News

Health

To strengthen bones, suck out the marrow

News

60 Seconds

News

Soundbites

News

Health

Double-whammy gene keeps smokers hooked

News

Life

How to kickstart an agricultural revolution

News

Space

NASA slammed over handling of air safety survey

News

Health

Effects of botox are more than skin deep

News

Health

EU bans GM-contaminated rice from China

News

Health

War takes its toll on civilian mental health

News

Health

Ads for ineffective drugs reel in the dollars

News

Space

No danger of particle collider triggering doomsday

News

Earth

Australia pressed to take lead on carbon capture

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: Why I had to walk out of farming talks

FOUR years ago, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was born. This ground-breaking exercise brought together government, non-governmental organisations and industry representatives, including Syngenta, to assess world agriculture. Potential authors were nominated and selected – and I was among them. All the authors were expected to draw on their own …

Opinion

Comment: Bridging gulfs to feed the world

Opinion

Earth

Editorial: Gambling on the rainforests

Opinion

Editorial: Forewarned is forearmed

Opinion

Commentary: What is this thing called religion?

Opinion

Interview: Science's man in Whitehall

Opinion

Features

Histories: How cowboys choked the American West

Earth

Histories: How cowboys choked the American West

Dust is as much a part of the Wild West as guns, whiskey and cowboys. Churned up by the hoofs of millions of longhorn cattle and filling the streets of flyblown towns, it is the backdrop for many a shoot-out. Until recently, most assumed that the American West was a natural dust bowl where every …

Features

Physics

Impossible physics: Never say never

Features

Life

Nautilus: Chambers of secrets

Features

Life

Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

Features

Life

Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?

Features

More

When luck's got nothing to do with it

When luck's got nothing to do with it

Diving into Dublin "WHY do I love Dublin? Because it's an Irish city with a New York attitude," says Tom Rondeau, a PhD student from the US studying at the University of Dublin's Trinity College. And he's right. Dublin's city centre may be surrounded by Georgian architecture, the Wicklow mountains, and be home to the …

Careers

Review: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson

Books & Arts

Review: The Thief at the End of the World by Joe Jackson

Books & Arts

Review: The Sexual Paradox: Troubled boys, gifted girls & the real difference between the sexes by Susan Pinker

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

Tourists from the future SOME people have speculated that when the Large Hadron Collider is switched on at CERN in Switzerland later this year, time travellers from the future may appear ( New Scientist , 9 February, p 32) . "We should be ready to welcome them," Anthony Higham decrees, "on this, the most important …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop