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This week's magazine

20 December 2008

Issue 2687

New Scientist issue 2687 cover
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Editor's picks

How to make your own high-tech Christmas gifts

How to make your own high-tech Christmas gifts

Features
Magicology: Casting a spell on the mind

Life

Magicology: Casting a spell on the mind

Features
The return of Elektro, the first celebrity robot

Technology

The return of Elektro, the first celebrity robot

Features
How kangaroo burgers could save the planet

Earth

How kangaroo burgers could save the planet

Features
How to knit a brain

Life

How to knit a brain

Features
Online shopping and the Harry Potter effect

Technology

Online shopping and the Harry Potter effect

Features
Chocolate in peril

Earth

Chocolate in peril

Features
How to make cheap wine taste like a fine vintage

Mind

How to make cheap wine taste like a fine vintage

Features
DNA dating: Can genes help you pick a mate?

Life

DNA dating: Can genes help you pick a mate?

Features
Bye-bye boojums: Scientific names lose their sparkle

Space

Bye-bye boojums: Scientific names lose their sparkle

Features
The scientific guide to gift wrapping

Physics

The scientific guide to gift wrapping

Features
End of year quiz

End of year quiz

Features
What killed Dr Granville's mummy?

Humans

What killed Dr Granville's mummy?

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.

Space

News review 2008: The year NASA's star began to wane

It was NASA's 50th anniversary year , but despite the celebrations the agency has been beset by bad news and questions over its future. In 2010 its ageing space shuttle fleet is set to retire for safety reasons. The problem is, the Ares I rocket and Orion crew capsule intended to replace it won't be …

News

Space

News review 2008: Asia's space race takes off

News

Earth

News review 2008: Reality returns to the White House

News

Earth

News review 08: China quakes, but the dams don't break

News

Technology

News review 2008: Large Hadron Collider makes physics sexy

News

News review 2008: Oil shock hits the world

News

News review 2008: Hunger bites as food crisis deepens

News

Life

Ecstasy over G spot therapy

News

News review 2008: Human genes become commodities

News

News review 2008: How 'rocket science' failed the banks

News

Is the Exxon Valdez oil spill finally cleaned up?

News

Earth

Nobel laureate to be next US energy secretary

News

Switch to biofuels boosts insect pest

News

Earth

Blight hits world's vanilla supply

News

Health

Struggle over bird flu samples drags on

News

Life

Judges junk bogus neuroscience

News

Technology

Malaria bed nets' usefulness is their downfall

News

Earliest spider web and more

News

World leaders 'failing to get' climate message

News

Physics

Calls to scrap the 'leap second' grow

News

'It appears that she does it for her own satisfaction'

News

Space

Burrowing black holes devoured first stars from within

News

Mind

Monthly shot to stop alcoholics' holiday relapse

News

Earth

Great fireworks, shame about the toxic fallout

News

Mind-reading software reveals brain images

News

Technology

Satnav device gets the shopping done fast

News

Technology

Transparent memory makes for see-through phones

News

Technology

Software plays pop mogul

News

Technology

Gizmo: Nanny cars

News

Space

Flaw may have sent Beagle 2 to a fiery doom

News

Earth

Snowflake maker to improve weather forecasts

News

Earth

News review 2008: The year in science

News

Humans

News review 2008: Gay people may be born that way

News

News review 2008: The best and worst of the year

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.

Earth

Editorial: New world order on climate

ONCE upon a time, Angela Merkel was a green heroine. As Germany's environment minister in the 1990s she chaired talks that led to the Kyoto protocol. Now she is chancellor and greens call her Darth Merkel for defending her coal and car industries and for watering down the climate change package at the European Union's …

Opinion

Editorial: Let's keep science festive

Opinion

Health

Editorial: Beagle 2 and the dangers of spin

Opinion

Whose science is it anyway?

Opinion

Life

Who did most to knock man off his pedestal?

Opinion

Earth

The man who collects molten lava for a living

Opinion

Space

Reasons to be jolly about 2008

Opinion

Features

How to make your own high-tech Christmas gifts

How to make your own high-tech Christmas gifts

A home-made Wall-E... ...and Cookie Monster OH, THE heady days of 2007! The economy was booming, we were living it up on credit and grabbing the latest gadgets. What a difference a year makes. With the credit crunch biting, jobs vanishing and recession looming worldwide, this Christmas is looking a rather bleak affair. Consumers said …

Features

Life

Magicology: Casting a spell on the mind

Features

Technology

The return of Elektro, the first celebrity robot

Features

Earth

How kangaroo burgers could save the planet

Features

Life

How to knit a brain

Features

Technology

Online shopping and the Harry Potter effect

Features

Earth

Chocolate in peril

Features

Mind

How to make cheap wine taste like a fine vintage

Features

Life

DNA dating: Can genes help you pick a mate?

Features

Space

Bye-bye boojums: Scientific names lose their sparkle

Features

Physics

The scientific guide to gift wrapping

Features

End of year quiz

Features

Humans

What killed Dr Granville's mummy?

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.

Enigma No. 1525

Hark the Herald Angels I HAVE numbered the letters of the alphabet from 1 to 26, but not in alphabetical order. So each letter has its unique value, and given any word I can work out its value by adding up the values of its letters. For example, THAT has value 96. Now I have …

Regulars

The promise of tomorrow

Careers

Review: The Long Thaw by David Archer

Books & Arts

The Hedgehog's Dilemma by Hugh Warwick

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 competition: The winners

Feedback competition results 2008: gifts from future time-travellers "HELLO, I'm from the future," the creature announced as it jumped out of the Large Hadron Collider. "After the Bad Thing happened, life was pretty bad, but we've invented this thing called Fire and now life is pretty good. So I've brought you some Fire." The second …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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