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This week's magazine

15 August 2009

Issue 2721

New Scientist issue 2721 cover
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Editor's picks

Late light reveals what space is made of

Space

Late light reveals what space is made of

Features
Why humans can't navigate out of a paper bag

Life

Why humans can't navigate out of a paper bag

Features
Future trucks: Cleaning up the kings of the road

Earth

Future trucks: Cleaning up the kings of the road

Features
The fat that makes you thin

Life

The fat that makes you thin

Features

Table of contents

News

Extinct boobies return from the dead

Earth

Extinct boobies return from the dead

The Mark Twain of gannets IT HAPPENED to Mark Twain, now it has happened to an enigmatic species of gannet: reports of its death, it seems, are greatly exaggerated. The Tasman booby ( Sula dactylatra tasmani ) was first described in 1988 from fossils found on Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, off the east coast …

News

Calls to resurrect NASA's sci-fi think tank

News

Doubts over antivirals for kids

News

Earth

Slow progress on greening palm oil

News

Earth

North America puts carbon on the map

News

Life

Tough times call for taller presidents

News

A penny to cut spam

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Swine flu: How experts are preparing their families

News

Space

Did asteroids flock together to build planets?

News

Stowaway insects imperil Darwin's finches

News

Space

Milky Way may have a huge hidden neighbour

News

Technology

Statistics could help decode ancient scripts

News

Life

Humans may have learned to walk in the trees

News

Health

Malaria vaccine holds out eradication hope

News

Earth

Why the highest mountains are near the equator

News

How over-confidence leads us into temptation

News

Bugs bare their magnetic bits

News

Insults are best taken lying down

News

Ugly skin growths saved Yushchenko

News

Space

Black hole parasites explain cosmic flashes

News

Life

Same-sex action helps thrush yeast thrive

News

Birds shrink as temperature rises

News

Technology

Hurt my avatar and I feel pain

News

Space

Beagle 2 didn't spin to its doom

News

Technology

'Black boxes' for future iPhones

News

Technology

Internet 'immune system' could block viruses

News

Technology

The power of five brings quantum computers alive

News

Space

Night-time photos shed light on growing economies

News

Technology

Spy satellites to fly in packs

News

Opinion

Stephen Fry: Why turtles make me cry

Earth

Stephen Fry: Why turtles make me cry

Stephen Fry takes a look at nature Over 20 years ago, Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and zoologist Mark Carwardine travelled the world to find its most endangered species. Now Adams's friend Stephen Fry has retraced his steps for a TV documentary. David Cohen meets the comedian, techno-geek and …

Opinion

Swine flu: knowledge is power

Opinion

Time for an ethical weight loss pill

Opinion

Spam stamper too good to be true?

Opinion

Health

Why managing risk is a risky business

Opinion

One-minute interview: The Yes Men

Opinion

Features

Late light reveals what space is made of

Space

Late light reveals what space is made of

Video: Cosmic gamma rays MAGIC at work Gallery: All eyes on space: The global gamma-ray network ON THE night of 30 June 2005, the sky high above La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands crackled with streaks of blue light too faint for humans to see. Atop the Roque de los Muchachos, the highest point of …

Features

Life

Why humans can't navigate out of a paper bag

Features

Earth

Future trucks: Cleaning up the kings of the road

Features

Life

The fat that makes you thin

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 Number 1558

Mirror image The digits in the two addition sums are all non-zero and have been replaced by letters and smiley faces. Different letters stand for different digits, the same letter stands for the same digit, and each emoticon can be any digit. If the six-digit summation of either addition is a mirror image (i.e. reverse) …

Regulars

Life

Review: Not a Chimp by Jeremy Taylor

Books & Arts

Review: The Medicine Cabinet of Curiosities

Books & Arts

Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens by K. C. Cole

Books & Arts

What's hot on NewScientist.com

Regulars

Earth

Review: Radical Nature

Books & Arts

Space

Review: Norman Mailer, Moonfire

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.

Maestros of the random paper

COMPUTER scientists are not the only researchers whose inboxes fill up with invitations to submit papers to previously unheard-of conferences, but they probably get more than most. Researchers Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn and Dan Aguayo at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were so annoyed at what they dubbed "spamferences" that they did what computer scientists …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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