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This week's magazine

19 September 2009

Issue 2726

New Scientist issue 2726 cover
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Editor's picks

How you can make the world a better place

How you can make the world a better place

Features
Better world: Get real

Earth

Better world: Get real

Features
Better world: Screen your genes

Health

Better world: Screen your genes

Features
Better world: Be nice to people

Life

Better world: Be nice to people

Features
Better world: Eat more plants

Earth

Better world: Eat more plants

Features
Better world: Pimp your house

Earth

Better world: Pimp your house

Features
Better world: Share things

Earth

Better world: Share things

Features
Better world: Move to the city

Earth

Better world: Move to the city

Features
Better world: Vaccinate your children

Health

Better world: Vaccinate your children

Features
Better world: Consume sceptically

Earth

Better world: Consume sceptically

Features
Better world: Offset your emissions

Earth

Better world: Offset your emissions

Features
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.

Big thinkers, big ideas

Features
Trash trackers: The secret life of garbage

Earth

Trash trackers: The secret life of garbage

Features
Rethinking the bee's waggle dance

Life

Rethinking the bee's waggle dance

Features
Quantum computers are coming – just don't ask when

Technology

Quantum computers are coming – just don't ask when

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.

Polar bears run riot as ice melts

YOU can almost hear Sarah Palin cocking her rifle. As climate change causes sea ice to shrink, the number of "problem" polar bears appears to be increasing. "Hungry bears don't just lie down – they go looking for an alternate food source," says zoologist Ian Stirling at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. "In …

News

Health

Unchecked healthcare costs will ruin America

News

Geothermal energy on shaky ground

News

US poorly prepared for dirty bomb cleanup

News

Wheat hero is dead, but killer fungus still threatens

News

Health

Alan Turing gets belated apology

News

Online booze guide helps students drink less

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Brain science to help teachers get into kids' heads

News

Don't blame it all on dad's absence

News

Health

Mystery immunity could boost swine flu protection

News

Space

Too much radiation for astronauts to make it to Mars

News

Technology

Mayans 'played' pyramids to make music for rain god

News

Can we create quantum creatures in the lab?

News

Life

Genetic seamstress uses molecular fingers to tweak DNA

News

Earth

Fair carbon means no carbon for rich countries

News

Shower heads make a perfect home for bugs

News

Brain cells less power-hungry than we thought

News

Master gene controls natural killer cells

News

Mouse takes off – thanks to magnets

News

Physics

When opposite charges repel

News

Eye movements reveal processing of hidden memories

News

Life

Mystery of horned females solved

News

Health

Naked mole rats may help cure cancer

News

Technology

Flying Armadillo has the power to escape the moon

News

Technology

The noses that know who smokes

News

Technology

Satnav means you won't touch that dial

News

Technology

Augmented reality gets off to a wobbly start

News

Technology

Army heli-Weeble hops to avoid rubble trouble

News

Technology

Robots get smarter by asking for help

News

Technology

Installing a 3D-ready television might be premature

News

Opinion

Why are we the naked ape?

Life

Why are we the naked ape?

No one is sure why Homo sapiens is the only primate to have lost its body hair RIGHT from the start of modern evolutionary science, why humans are hairless has been controversial. "No one supposes," wrote Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man , "that the nakedness of the skin is any direct advantage to …

Opinion

In praise of a new science of learning

Opinion

Let's junk the throwaway society

Opinion

Science and science fiction

Opinion

Life

Why bankers are like bacteria

Opinion

Life

Trevor Nunn stages the 1920s Tennessee 'monkey trial'

Opinion

Features

How you can make the world a better place

How you can make the world a better place

What can individuals do to help save the world? Last week we looked at some big ideas for transforming the world. This week, we look at what you as an individual can do. 1. Get real 2. Screen your genes 3. Eat more plants 4. Pimp your house 5. Be nice to people 6. Share …

Features

Earth

Better world: Get real

Features

Health

Better world: Screen your genes

Features

Life

Better world: Be nice to people

Features

Earth

Better world: Eat more plants

Features

Earth

Better world: Pimp your house

Features

Earth

Better world: Share things

Features

Earth

Better world: Move to the city

Features

Health

Better world: Vaccinate your children

Features

Earth

Better world: Consume sceptically

Features

Earth

Better world: Offset your emissions

Features

Big thinkers, big ideas

Features

Earth

Trash trackers: The secret life of garbage

Features

Life

Rethinking the bee's waggle dance

Features

Technology

Quantum computers are coming – just don't ask when

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 1563

Drawing a line Enigma is a piece of contemporary art. It consists of a solid white cuboid of sides 18 centimetres, 24 centimetres and some other length (which is not a whole number of centimetres). On each face of the cuboid there is a straight red line a whole number of centimetres long going from …

Regulars

Jobs market is chemically active

Careers

Science fiction: The stories of now

Books & Arts

Reflective Surfaces by Ken MacLeod

Books & Arts

A Little School by Ian McDonald

Books & Arts

2109: The reality?

Books & Arts

Acid Rain by Nicola Griffith

Books & Arts

Kelvin 2.0 by Stephen Baxter

Books & Arts

Penance by Paul McAuley

Books & Arts

Review: Oceanic by Greg Egan

Books & Arts

Review: Transition by Iain Banks

Books & Arts

Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Books & Arts

Review: Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon

Books & Arts

Review: Wireless by Charles Stross

Books & Arts

A Virtual Population Crisis by Ian Watson

Books & Arts

One Shot by Justina Robson

Books & Arts

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.

The puzzling world of virtual snacks

DING! We have new mail. Michael Harvey tells us he is munching from a packet of Walkers Thai sweet chilli flavour crisps (chips, transatlantically). The packet proudly proclaims: "made with real ingredients", and Michael wonders what the alternative is. Within the hour Paul Gardner writes with an answer, inspired by a packet of poppadoms from …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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