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This week's magazine

16 August 2008

Issue 2669

New Scientist issue 2669 cover
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Editor's picks

The evolutionary story of the 'language gene'

Life

The evolutionary story of the 'language gene'

Features
Green fuel for the airline industry

Earth

Green fuel for the airline industry

Features
Iron superconductors: Breaking all the rules

Technology

Iron superconductors: Breaking all the rules

Features
Climate change: The next ten years

Earth

Climate change: The next ten years

Features

Table of contents

News

Rise of the rat-brained robots

Technology

Rise of the rat-brained robots

Video: A collection of 300,000 rat neurons stops this robot bumping into thing (Footage courtesy Reading University, UK) Watch a video of the rat-brained robot in action AFTER buttoning up a lab coat, snapping on surgical gloves and spraying them with alcohol, I am deemed sanitary enough to view a robot's control system up close. …

News

Earth

Computers tell their life stories to reduce waste

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

Touchy-feely robots have sensitive skin

News

Life

Computer model of bees probes the hive mind

News

Life

Basketball pros use pinkies to make predictions

News

Life

Why reading disgusting things makes you gag

News

Life

Beetles feel the heat to find home

News

Life

Fussy fish pick a partner from afar

News

Life

How old mice kept their livers forever young

News

Earth

Ecotourists scare away endangered wildlife

News

Life

Are triumphant displays learned or hard-wired?

News

Life

'Beer goggles' are real – it's official

News

Earth

Elephant seals recruited to monitor sea ice

News

Life

Go online to find your future spouse

News

Life

Humans are biased towards the beautiful

News

Life

Red dwarfs may host habitable worlds

News

Life

The pill may put women off Mr Right

News

Space

Quantum strangeness breaks the light barrier

News

Space

Black hole caught eating a star

News

Earth

Yellowstone supervolcano is strangely cool

News

Space

Milky Way keeps tight grip on its neighbour

News

Health

'Adaptor plug' to turn antibodies into HIV killers

News

'The cure is not to reduce the price'

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Phoenix uncovers history of liquid water on Mars

News

Earth

Humpback comeback could signal end of hunting ban

News

Health

Drug could protect fetuses from mothers' drinking

News

Life

Male soldiers were sexually abused in Liberian war

News

Earth

Biofuels fail to meet sustainability criteria

News

Technology

First successful test of most powerful accelerator

News

Space

NASA backs troubled rocket design

News

Health

Senator calls for review of anthrax evidence

News

Opinion

Comment: The real cost of gold

Earth

Comment: The real cost of gold

The price of gold has risen sharply in the last five years Watch a slideshow of the effects of mining GOLD fever is upon us. As mineral prices spike, the lust for riches that once lured men to the distant Canadian Yukon and Australian hinterlands is today drawing countless thousands to remote rainforests. Thanks to …

Opinion

Editorial: Treading lightly still harms the animals

Opinion

Earth

Editorial: Better climate forecasts will bring storms

Opinion

Earth

Are some things best left unsaid?

Opinion

Interview: The golden age of cryptography

Opinion

Features

The evolutionary story of the 'language gene'

Life

The evolutionary story of the 'language gene'

IMAGINE an orchestra full of eager musicians which, thanks to an incompetent conductor, produces nothing more than an unrelieved cacophony. You're starting to appreciate the problem faced by a British family known as KE. About half of its members have severe difficulties with language. They have trouble with grammar, writing and comprehension, but above all …

Features

Earth

Green fuel for the airline industry

Features

Technology

Iron superconductors: Breaking all the rules

Features

Earth

Climate change: The next ten years

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: The Undercover Scientist, by Peter J. Bentley

PRAY you never have a day as hellish as this. Within 16 hours, the hero of this book gets a computer virus, squirts raw chilli juice in his eye and breaks his toe, little finger and front tooth, among other mishaps. The consolation for us is that every calamity illustrates more science, such as why …

Books & Arts

Review: Human, by Michael Gazzaniga

Books & Arts

Life

Review: Prehistory by Colin Renfrew

Books & Arts

Review: 13 Things that Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks

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

Hi-fi follies ON 26 JULY we noted that the electronics and hi-fi company Denon is charging nearly $500 for a 1.5-metre length of network cable. Now a reader who wants to be known as Adam points us to Pear Audio , which is charging $2750 for a pair of 3-foot Anjou speaker cables, $5250 for …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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