Subscribe now

This week's magazine

7 June 2008

Issue 2659

New Scientist issue 2659 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

Climate scientists go with the floe

Earth

Climate scientists go with the floe

Features
Gotcha! Flesh-eating plants set a wily trap

Life

Gotcha! Flesh-eating plants set a wily trap

Features
Genetically modified humans: Here and more coming soon

Life

Genetically modified humans: Here and more coming soon

Features
Inflation deflated? The big bang's toughest test

Space

Inflation deflated? The big bang's toughest test

Features

Table of contents

News

Silicon chip filters out cancer cells

Technology

Silicon chip filters out cancer cells

IT'S harder than finding a needle in a haystack. Unusual or rare cells, such as those that cause the spread of cancer, are difficult to isolate from thousands of other cells in a sample. Now a new device has been developed which can direct and focus streams of cells in a liquid, and even separate …

News

Space

Do Pluto and its moons feature cosmic graffiti?

News

Health

When a family history of cancer is a good thing

News

Life

Equality makes maths a girl thing

News

Life

Rat remains help date New Zealand's colonisation

News

Life

Kinship is key for altruistic species

News

Health

Blocking chemical lets cells feast on brain plaques

News

Life

Epilepsy drug may help calm alcoholic cravings

News

Technology

Treaty piles on pressure to make cluster bombs smarter

News

Earth

Seabed scratches show icebergs reached the tropics

News

Technology

First self-replicating machine makes an appearance

News

Technology

Laptops could betray users in the developing world

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Earth

Algae oil promises truly green fuel

News

Earth

Nanoblanket cleans up last traces of oil

News

Life

'Hairy blobs' in acid hell suggest new niche for life

News

Life

Single tax rebate won't get US spending

News

Space

Did black hole 'fireworks' light up early cosmos?

News

Life

Animals in the wild may hold key to ageing

News

Life

Bloodsucking bugs help vaccinate flighty zoo animals

News

Soundbites

News

Life

Was Stonehenge built to revere the dead?

News

Life

Are autistic savants made not born?

News

Health

Hay fever vaccine needs just four shots

News

Health

Heavy pot smoking linked to smaller brains

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

Brimming quake lakes set to repeat historic flood disaster

News

Earth

New Guinea forests shrinking faster than the Amazon

News

Life

Drug promotions work like washing-powder ads

News

Physics

Reasons for optimism over US particle physics

News

Health

Do bacteria cause cot death?

News

Technology

US nuclear recycling plans raise proliferation risks

News

Life

Leaky disease labs get off scot-free

News

Opinion

Sex, drugs and surveys

Humans

Sex, drugs and surveys

TO WHAT extent are young people experimenting with sex and drugs? For kids in the US, we'll know this week. Every two years, some 14,000 teens fill in a questionnaire on various risky behaviours, and the results from 2007 are now ready for public scrutiny. This snapshot of the vices of America's teens comes from …

Opinion

Editorial: China's dams in the danger zone

Opinion

Physics

Editorial: Why the best theories aren't always right

Opinion

Space

Commentary: It's a wonderful cosmos

Opinion

Space

Will NASA last another 50 years?

Opinion

Features

Climate scientists go with the floe

Earth

Climate scientists go with the floe

WHEN Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his crew moored their ship Fram to an ice floe 700 kilometres north of Siberia, they knew they faced a long imprisonment in the Arctic ice. They had calculated that the slow movement of the ice would carry them northwards, eventually placing them within striking distance of the then-unconquered …

Features

Life

Gotcha! Flesh-eating plants set a wily trap

Features

Life

Genetically modified humans: Here and more coming soon

Features

Space

Inflation deflated? The big bang's toughest test

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: Bottlemania by Elizabeth Royte

ALLOW me to grovel, confess, repent: I drink a lot of bottled water. At a time when anti-corporate activists and environmentalists are targeting the booming bottled water industry on sustainability grounds, and even comparing people like myself to Hummer drivers, that has me more than a little concerned for my eco-cred. So I expected Elizabeth …

Books & Arts

Review: Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from climates past by Chris Turney

Books & Arts

Review: Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women scientists speak out by Emily Monosson

Books & Arts

Highlights of the north

Careers

Review: The Animal Research War by P Michael Conn and James V Parker

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

Thermonuclear wash days FEEDBACK has long been intrigued by laundry balls. On the one hand, these variously shaped objects that you put in the washing machine to save detergent and energy may well work – after all, slapping your clothes against rocks in a cold stream works, apparently, if you have the persistence. On the …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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