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This week's magazine

30 August 2008

Issue 2671

New Scientist issue 2671 cover
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Editor's picks

Large Hadron Collider: The wait is over

Technology

Large Hadron Collider: The wait is over

Features
Viruses: The unsung heroes of evolution

Life

Viruses: The unsung heroes of evolution

Features
Large Hadron Collider: Extreme machine

Technology

Large Hadron Collider: Extreme machine

Features
How to keep your head in scary situations

How to keep your head in scary situations

Features

Table of contents

News

US army has laser guns in its sights

Technology

US army has laser guns in its sights

LASER weapons mounted on trucks could be ready to roll into battle within five years. This week Boeing won a $36 million contract from the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command to build the optics needed to track and focus lethal laser energy onto rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds. The High Energy Laser …

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

New food enhancers pump up the flavour

News

Technology

Family tree for inventions shows joined-up thinking

News

Technology

Facebook application turns users into attackers

News

Earth

Organic wine is twice as good for the planet

News

Earth

China quake forces rethink over hazard maps

News

Space

NASA's 'electronic nose' could sniff out cancer

News

Health

Gut-boosting molecule could fight off stubborn bugs

News

Life

Face transplant recipients don't look like donors

News

Life

The need for speed keeps elephants on their toes

News

Space

Galactic supercrash proves rarity of antimatter

News

Space

Nearby star may be swarming with comets

News

Life

Malaria's big bang was sparked by switching hosts

News

Life

Heated seats may be frying your sperm

News

Soundbites

News

Life

Hormones fine-tune finches' ear for a love song

News

Life

Why the world is a happier place

News

Technology

When drilling holes makes for a quiet life

News

Technology

Cocaine 'flush' could be first anti-overdose drug

News

Life

Cool hand illusion reveals mind-body link

News

Earth

Do cows have an internal compass?

News

Earth

Food-aid rice drink has high levels of arsenic

News

Earth

The weekends are more rainy – and it may be our fault

News

Earth

No-take zones won't shelter coral against global warming

News

Space

Rocket failure burns NASA for second time in a month

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Circadian rhythms boost cancer therapies

News

Life

Test predicts the swing of floating voters

News

Health

Ayurvedic medicines laden with heavy metals

News

Technology

Iraq bans nuclear tests

News

Earth

Wind turbines make bat lungs explode

News

Health

'Autistic' mice give genetic clues

News

Opinion

Keeping the psychedelic dream alive

Health

Keeping the psychedelic dream alive

Video: Rick Doblin discusses his work on psychedelics Rick Doblin Turn on, tune in, drop out, was the mantra of the 60s guru Timothy Leary, who ran experiments on using LSD at Harvard. Millions of America's youth listened – including the teenage Rick Doblin . But Leary's work ran into serious criticism, the US banned …

Opinion

What me, irrational?

Opinion

Commentary: Editors must be our gatekeepers

Opinion

Technology

Editorial: The LHC will give reality its most thorough check yet

Opinion

Features

Large Hadron Collider: The wait is over

Technology

Large Hadron Collider: The wait is over

Find out how the LHC was built "I WILL probably cry when we see the first collision," says Bilge Demirköz. After spending the best part of a decade designing detectors and writing computer code for them, the 28-year-old physicist is yet to get her hands on real data. That's about to change. In a matter …

Features

Life

Viruses: The unsung heroes of evolution

Features

Technology

Large Hadron Collider: Extreme machine

Features

How to keep your head in scary situations

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.

Health

Review: A Time to Dance, A Time to Die by John Waller

THE dancing epidemic of 1518 was the last of its kind. Victims were gripped by the urge to dance almost endlessly. Some danced until their feet wore down to bone, and many died. John Waller explores the atmosphere of fear and superstition that created this mass hysteria, then tells how it retreated in the face …

Books & Arts

Physics

Review: The Quantum Ten by Sheilla Jones

Books & Arts

Review: Pet Food Politics: The chihuahua in the coal mine by Marion Nestle

Books & Arts

Life

Review: The Sex Lives of Animals

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

Smoot and roll AS A prank in 1958, Matthew Dirckx tells us, a group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology used the body of Oliver Smoot, the shortest new recruit to their fraternity, to measure the length of a bridge across the Charles river connecting Boston to the MIT campus. The bridge was found …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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