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This week's magazine

10 October 2009

Issue 2729

New Scientist issue 2729 cover
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Editor's picks

Are you asleep? Exploring the mind's twilight zone

Life

Are you asleep? Exploring the mind's twilight zone

Features
Out of your head: Leaving the body behind

Life

Out of your head: Leaving the body behind

Features
Look into my eyes: The power of hypnosis

Life

Look into my eyes: The power of hypnosis

Features
Building a second sun: Take $10 billion, add coconuts

Earth

Building a second sun: Take $10 billion, add coconuts

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.

Packing heat makes you more likely to get shot

PACKING heat may backfire. People who carry guns are far more likely to get shot than those who are unarmed, a study of shooting victims in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has found. It would be impractical ā€“ not to say unethical ā€“ to randomly assign volunteers to carry a gun or not and see what happens. So …

News

Personal genomics firms must admit limitations

News

Earth

US climate bill feels the heat

News

Saturn's biggest ring was hiding

News

Nobel foundation replies to calls for change

News

Devastating Indonesian earthquake 'still to come'

News

Health

Down's blood test hits speed bump

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Targeted therapies exploit tiny chinks in cancer's armour

News

Neutrino beam could get messages to lurking submarines

News

Flu in pregnancy leaves a mean legacy

News

Life

CSI: Doodle ā€“ lie detection through art

News

Give forests back to local people to save them

News

Space

Big bang flashgun to snap atomic anatomy

News

Evening breast milk means a good sleep

News

Ballerina tyrannosaur unearthed in Mongolia

News

Life

Baby dinosaur made tracks as it fled for its life

News

There's gold in them there modified bacteria

News

Copycat suicides fuelled by media reporting

News

Rooks smarter than a 6-month-old baby

News

Blasted into space from a giant air gun

News

Life

Give a pig a mirror and it'll find its dinner

News

Our ancestor Ardi walked tall

News

Souped-up stem cells rescue damaged limbs

News

Technology

Crystal is one-way street for microwaves

News

Brain-wave boost sets us to slow motion

News

Technology

Card counters' days are numbered

News

Technology

Which kids will get stuck in the web?

News

Technology

Artificial skin can't fool the human touch

News

Technology

Cheap naked chips snap a perfect picture

News

Life

Adaptive games promise high scores for everyone

News

Life

Albatross inspires ocean-skimming drones

News

Technology

The US lets go of the internet ā€“ will anyone notice?

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.

Fusion is a gamble worth taking

"IT HAS long been the ambition of scientists to emulate the sun." This is how, half a century ago, John Cockcroft, one of the great nuclear pioneers, began an article in this magazine on the prospects for generating useful energy from nuclear fusion. Today sceptics joke that fusion is the energy source of the future …

Opinion

Old-style trials will miss lifesaving drugs

Opinion

Humans

Wake up at the back!

Opinion

Health

Big banks, big pharma, big problems

Opinion

Technology

Don Eigler: Two decades of nanotech

Opinion

Earth

Scorched earth: Wildfires will change the way we live

Opinion

Features

Are you asleep? Exploring the mind's twilight zone

Life

Are you asleep? Exploring the mind's twilight zone

Blurred lines between asleep and awake EARLIER this year, a puzzling report appeared in the journal Sleep Medicine . It described two Italian people who never truly slept. They might lie down and close their eyes, but read-outs of brain activity showed none of the normal patterns associated with sleep. Their behaviour was pretty odd, …

Features

Life

Out of your head: Leaving the body behind

Features

Life

Look into my eyes: The power of hypnosis

Features

Earth

Building a second sun: Take $10 billion, add coconuts

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 1566

Consistently older Yesterday was Harry's birthday and also Tom's birthday. Harry is the older. Harry's current age, Tom's current age and the difference between their ages are each the product of two primes. The six primes are all different. Before Harry reaches the age of 90, there will be three further years during which his …

Regulars

What's hot on NewScientist.com

Regulars

Life

Review: Botanica Magnifica by Jonathan Singer

Books & Arts

Physics

Review: Cracking the Einstein Code by Fulvio Melia

Books & Arts

Health

Review: The Deadly Dinner Party by Jonathan Edlow; Diagnosis by Lisa Sanders

Books & Arts

Review: Quantum Leaps by Jeremy Bernstein

Books & Arts

Alexis Gambis: The art of the science film

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.

Ig Nobels special and Darwin Now competition

Ig Nobel prizes 2009 FEEDBACK'S favourite prizes, the Ig Nobels, were handed out on 1 October at Harvard University in a ceremony organised by the Annals of Improbable Research . After a year of global financial turmoil, the theme was risk, expounded in a 1-minute keynote address by BenoĆ®t Mandelbrot, the mathematician who years ago …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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