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This week's magazine

21 February 2009

Issue 2696

New Scientist issue 2696 cover
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Editor's picks

Do gravity holes harbour planetary assassins?

Space

Do gravity holes harbour planetary assassins?

Features
Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad?

Life

Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad?

Features
Superhuman: The secrets of the ice man

Life

Superhuman: The secrets of the ice man

Features
Why the Survival Car died an early death

Technology

Why the Survival Car died an early death

Features
Are we about to eliminate AIDS?

Health

Are we about to eliminate AIDS?

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.

China drought forces huge water cutbacks

AS RIVERS run dry and fields turn to dust, China has announced dramatic plans to cut water use by its industry and agriculture. Water resources minister Chen Lei announced plans to cut the amount of water needed to produce US$1 of GDP by 60 per cent by 2020. With China's economy projected to grow by …

News

Mixed-race Americans face wage discrimination

News

Health

Big Pharma shows its caring side

News

Earth

Ban on mountaintop mining overturned

News

Health

MMR vaccine not linked to autism, says US court

News

Earth

Ancient felling may explain carbon-sink forests

News

Earth

'Alien' genes escape into wild corn

News

Mercury U-turn, Texas fireball, and more

News

Health

Gene therapy promises one-shot treatment for HIV

News

Earth

Conservation plan would keep islanders in exile

News

Soundbites from the AAAS

News

Space

Quark star may hold secret to early universe

News

Earth

Lizards will roast in a warming world

News

Health

New kind of epilepsy shakes up memory

News

Space

Natural antifreeze may keep Mars running with water

News

Space

Satellite crash 'worse than missile blast'

News

Earth

Prepare for a climate-changed world, say engineers

News

Technology

Texting can b gd 4 ur kids

News

Technology

When computing becomes child's play

News

Technology

Flexible electronic books to hit market soon

News

Technology

Most powerful ever quantum chip undergoing tests

News

Technology

Shortest route through the internet is via hyperspace

News

Space

Milky Way still reeling from ancient smash

News

Health

Rare syndrome points to sociability gene

News

'Phobia pill' breaks cycle of fear

News

Life

Ancient sharks saw the deep sea in colour

News

Life

Mole rats may hold secret to long life

News

Arctic 'laughing gas' belch is no joke

News

Superhard material knocks off diamond's crown

News

Backpack-toting birds reveal pace of migration

News

Opinion

Exposing the links between doctors and Big Pharma

Health

Exposing the links between doctors and Big Pharma

Chuck Grassley is trying to force drugs companies to own up to the payments they make to doctors Republican senator Chuck Grassley has made it his mission to shake up the cosy relationship between doctors, researchers and the pharmaceutical industry. Now he is introducing legislation to force drugs companies to disclose the payments they make …

Opinion

Health

New hopes over elimination of AIDS

Opinion

Space

We need to stop littering in space

Opinion

Health

Sleep for your sanity

Opinion

Life

We need a satisfactory metaphor for DNA

Opinion

Heritage is not what it used to be

Opinion

Life

Celebrate evolution as only star children can

Opinion

Features

Do gravity holes harbour planetary assassins?

Space

Do gravity holes harbour planetary assassins?

NASA's STEREO spacecraft will search for objects trapped at the Lagrangian points THEY are the places gravity forgot. Vast regions of space, millions of kilometres across, in which celestial forces conspire to cancel out gravity and so trap anything that falls into them. They sit in the Earth's orbit, one marching ahead of our planet, …

Features

Life

Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad?

Features

Life

Superhuman: The secrets of the ice man

Features

Technology

Why the Survival Car died an early death

Features

Health

Are we about to eliminate AIDS?

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. 1533

Roman grid Put one of the letters C, L, X, V, I into each cell of a 5 × 5 grid so that each row and each column is a valid five-letter Roman numeral less than 300. No numeral may appear more than once; the five horizontal numerals should be in descending numerical order from …

Regulars

Time to acknowledge science's debt to Islam?

Books & Arts

Humans

Review: The Decisive Moment: How the brain makes up its mind by Jonah Lehrer

Books & Arts

Space

Review: Einstein's Telescope by Evalyn Gates

Books & Arts

Review: What I Require from Life: Writings on science and life from J. B. S. Haldane

Books & Arts

Class of 2009

Careers

What's hot on NewScientist.com

Regulars

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.

Cows on the prowl

Nuclear explosions in the home THE following advertisement was spotted by Mike Birch in the February issue of Radcom , published by the Radio Society of Great Britain: "Would a person with a 1 kilowatt linear contact me? I want to use the output to test to see if I can initiate a thermonuclear fusion …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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