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This week's magazine

13 December 2008

Issue 2686

New Scientist issue 2686 cover
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Editor's picks

Did our cosmos exist before the big bang?

Space

Did our cosmos exist before the big bang?

Features
Archimedes and the 2000-year-old computer

Space

Archimedes and the 2000-year-old computer

Features
Are daughters-in-law to blame for the menopause?

Life

Are daughters-in-law to blame for the menopause?

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.

Earth

Mountaintop miners lose bank's backing

If you're having trouble getting a bank loan, you have something in common with the US coal mining industry. The Bank of America has announced that it will refuse loans to mining companies that pursue the damaging practice of lopping off mountaintops to extract coal. The hope is that other banks will now do the …

News

Health

Brain-boosting drugs 'not to be feared'

News

Space

US and Europe join forces for future Mars missions

News

Beijing set to stay thirsty until 2014

News

DNA database 'violates human rights'

News

First malaria vaccine a success in trials

News

Atlas reveals 'two for the price of one' forests

News

Banning bluetongue

News

Puberty blockers recommended for transsexual teens

News

Earth

Stock market game may predict eco disasters

News

Martian rock steps mark past climate swings

News

Jealous dogs don't play ball

News

Life

Swirling waters boost chance of life on Europa

News

'We have 'survival' emissions, you have lifestyle emissions'

News

Health

Fertility drugs increase cancer risk

News

Health

Human DNA may set off AIDS timebomb

News

Earth

Lightning strikes give blizzard warning

News

Life

Deficit in 'poor' brains identified

News

Life

DNA is recovered from ancestral snack

News

Did meteorite smash kick-start life on Earth?

News

Spanish Inquisition left genetic legacy in Iberia

News

Space

Spinning water droplets behave like black holes

News

Life

Electricity sparks stem-cell transformation

News

Life

Bored? Your brain is disconnecting

News

Technology

Life-saving lab made from paper and sticky tape

News

Space

Commercial space station finds first customers

News

Earth

Super-wipe cleans up deadly spills

News

Technology

Gizmo: 'No-touch' screens

News

Technology

Airborne Laser lets rip on first target

News

Life

Mitochondrial battery could sniff out explosives

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.

Transsexual children deserve better

THE idea of delaying puberty in children and teens who feel confused about their gender will make many parents deeply uneasy. Yet that's what the Endocrine Society, the world's oldest and largest society devoted to the study of hormones, is proposing in draft guidelines issued last week (see "Puberty blockers recommended for transsexual teens") . …

Opinion

What nature could teach America about cybersecurity

Opinion

Modern lessons of ancient Greek computing

Opinion

Space

Why India must make its Moon probe pay

Opinion

Ideas that could save humanity

Opinion

Health

Seven unsolved medical mysteries

Opinion

Features

Did our cosmos exist before the big bang?

Space

Did our cosmos exist before the big bang?

Conceptual computer artwork representing the origin of the universe ABHAY ASHTEKAR remembers his reaction the first time he saw the universe bounce. "I was taken aback," he says. He was watching a simulation of the universe rewind towards the big bang. Mostly the universe behaved as expected, becoming smaller and denser as the galaxies converged. …

Features

Space

Archimedes and the 2000-year-old computer

Features

Life

Are daughters-in-law to blame for the menopause?

Features

More

Review: <i>Audubon: Early drawings</i>

Review: Audubon: Early drawings

IN 1803, a young Frenchman called Jean-Jacques Audubon sailed to America to avoid conscription into Napoleon's army. Thirty-five years later, he was the revered ornithological artist John James Audubon , "the American woodsman", author of the magnificent Birds of America . Before that book made him famous, he had spent decades trying to find a …

Books & Arts

Review: Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities by Ian Stewart

Books & Arts

Review: The White Road and Other Stories by Tania Hershman

Books & Arts

Space

Review: Mars 3D by Jim Bell

Books & Arts

Review: Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Portfolio 18

Books & Arts

Review: Cool Stuff Exploded by Chris Woodford

Books & Arts

Editor's picks 2008

Books & Arts

Enigma No. 1524

Regulars

Regulars

Chainsaw massacre

Chainsaw massacre

Promised plant prose STUCK for a seasonal gift for the geek in your life? You could just visit www.botanicalls.com for a product that reader Iain Brassington describes as "um... odd". Feedback concurs: "There's a school of thought," the sales pitch runs, "that says that plants, like higher animals, have thoughts and feelings. They have an …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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