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This week's magazine

28 June 2008

Issue 2662

New Scientist issue 2662 cover
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Editor's picks

Viking longships brought rape, pillage and cod

Life

Viking longships brought rape, pillage and cod

Features
MicroRNAs: The cell's little emperors

Health

MicroRNAs: The cell's little emperors

Features
Tunguska: The day the sky exploded

Earth

Tunguska: The day the sky exploded

Features
The science of fiction

The science of fiction

Features
Oil: The final warning

Earth

Oil: The final warning

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

Gizmo

Scrawling your logins and passwords on scraps of paper is a recipe for disaster. In US patent application 2008/0148392 , Motorola describes a USB key fob that lets you carry your login details around securely in the form of an encrypted file downloaded from a PC. Your fingerprint is used to unlock the fob: touch …

News

Life

Artificial brain predicts death-row executions

News

Technology

How a quantum effect is gumming up nanomachines

News

Technology

Radio ID tag signals could switch off your pacemaker

News

Earth

Web hits used to pinpoint earthquakes

News

Earth

Arctic ocean volcano blew its top – even under pressure

News

Health

Cats may exacerbate eczema gene mutation

News

Space

Orbiting robots could repair satellites on the fly

News

Life

Dog genome provides clues to breeds' personalities

News

Technology

Could nuclear warheads go off 'like popcorn'?

News

Health

Omega-3s are twice as important for girls as boys

News

Life

Mean girls get the goods

News

Life

Hungry spiders spin deadlier webs

News

Life

Poll booth location may influence voters

News

Health

Premature babies may suffer in silence

News

Earth

Springy sediments may amplify tsunamis

News

Health

Why some anaesthetics are a pain

News

Health

White blood cells may be the key to long life

News

Health

Is fructose fuelling the obesity epidemic?

News

Space

Hawking 'close' to explaining universe's inflation

News

Space

Almighty smash left record crater on Mars

News

Soundbites

News

Olympic start gun gives the edge to inside runners

News

Earth

How river engineering is tied to US floods

News

Life

War dead counts 'too low'

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Tamper-proof prescription drugs may halt abuse

News

Space

Phoenix lander digs for Mars ice to reveal its origin

News

Life

Territorial fight brews over pooch-cloning patents

News

Earth

Drought-resistant wheat beats Australian heat

News

Earth

Reef fish rebound in 'no-take' zones

News

Health

Transplant drug may ease disorder linked to autism

News

Earth

Air travel in the tropics is worse for climate

News

Opinion

Comment: Kicking the oil habit

Earth

Comment: Kicking the oil habit

ON 1 February 2006, the day after his state of the union address, President George W. Bush was discussing his 2006 agenda with the press when he made one of the most far-reaching statements of his presidency. "America," he declared, "must end its dependence on oil. When you're hooked on oil from the Middle East, …

Opinion

Editorial: High oil prices are an opportunity for change

Opinion

Commentary: Why astronomy is so important to science

Opinion

Interview: Fighting the dark side of the web

Opinion

Features

Viking longships brought rape, pillage and cod

Life

Viking longships brought rape, pillage and cod

Saga Sigler, a replica of a Viking ship in Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1985 Just over a thousand years ago, a Viking chieftain named Ohthere paid a visit to England and the court of King Alfred. An intrepid mariner, Ohthere told the king about his homeland in Arctic Norway, and described long sea voyages around …

Features

Health

MicroRNAs: The cell's little emperors

Features

Earth

Tunguska: The day the sky exploded

Features

The science of fiction

Features

Earth

Oil: The final warning

Features

More

A fresh outlook for German science

A fresh outlook for German science

GERMANY is the birthplace of 100 Nobel laureates. From Max Planck and Albert Einstein to Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn, the list of scientists who honed their craft, and made their breakthroughs and their names in Germany is astounding. But how does the country fare as a modern destination for researchers? Recent initiatives demonstrate Germany's …

Careers

Review: Snoop by Sam Gosling

Books & Arts

Review: Mortal Coil by David Boyd Haycock

Books & Arts

Review: The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory by George Musser

Books & Arts

Review: The Universe in a Mirror by Robert Zimmerman

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

Paris who? BIBLIOMETRY – what a lovely word! The analysis of books and other publications would, you might think, be an exact science. Its subject matter is, after all, down in black and white. Who published what and when: because it's so clear, the advocates of accountant-driven research have had little trouble convincing administrators that …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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