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This week's magazine

17 October 2009

Issue 2730

New Scientist issue 2730 cover
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Editor's picks

The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?

Technology

The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?

Features
Solving the crystal maze: The secrets of structure

Technology

Solving the crystal maze: The secrets of structure

Features
Six diseases you never knew you could catch

Life

Six diseases you never knew you could catch

Features
1 Obesity

1 Obesity

Features
2 Diabetes

2 Diabetes

Features
3 Schizophrenia

3 Schizophrenia

Features
4 Breast cancer

4 Breast cancer

Features
5 Obsessive-compulsive disorder

5 Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Features
6 Prostate cancer

6 Prostate cancer

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.

Astronomers clash with US air force over laser rules

COULD astronomers accidentally knock out satellites? That's the worry of the US air force, which restricts the use of lasers that help focus telescopes. Now some astronomers warn they will miss key observations under the rules. Many large observatories, including Keck and Gemini North in Hawaii, use lasers to determine the amount of turbulence in …

News

Swine flu vaccine shunned despite availability

News

Chronic fatigue syndrome linked to 'cancer virus'

News

Telescopes turn up no sign of NASA moon impact

News

Conservation targets too low to save at-risk species

News

Earth

Kew seed bank has 10% of all plants – and counting

News

Sick American dogs get first shot at cancer drugs

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

WHO launches worldwide war on booze

News

Space

What shook up Saturn's rings in 1984?

News

Animals feel the pain of religious slaughter

News

Macaques are creeped out by cyber-selves

News

Madagascar biodiversity threatened as gangs run wild

News

Life

Psychopaths are distracted, not cold-blooded

News

Earth

To spot an alien, follow the pollution trail

News

Climate pledges so far nowhere near enough

News

Earth

US steel-makers temper climate deal hopes

News

Learning to juggle grows brain networks for good

News

Asteroid isn't just a dry heap of rubble

News

Melting glaciers bring 1980s pollution revival

News

Butterfly is pupae-sniffing cradle-snatcher

News

Vegetarian spider is Gandhi of arachnids

News

Life

'Matrix for mice' probes how mental maps are made

News

A single shot to keep blindness at bay

News

Earth

Birth of the Appalachians triggered mass extinction

News

Life

Smart GPS tags track sunfish

News

Technology

Virgin Galactic adds satellite launches to space tourism

News

Technology

Hole on a stick aims to reinvent the desktop fan

News

Technology

The colourful promises of electronic paper

News

Technology

Hydrogen muscle silences the domestic robot

News

Technology

Virtual workforce found in Kenyan refugee camp

News

Technology

Labs-on-a-chip that you can shrink to fit

News

How life evolved: 10 steps to the first cells

News

Opinion

Richard Leakey: Passionate, prickly and principled

Life

Richard Leakey: Passionate, prickly and principled

Proud of his fossil-hunting past Interactive graphic: Timeline of human evolution Richard Leakey , one of the famous family of palaeoanthropologists, quit the field 20 years ago. He went on to fight Kenya's poachers and found a political party. But as Colin Barras found when he met Leakey during a rare trip to the UK, …

Opinion

WHO fires first shots in the war on alcohol

Opinion

No god-given right to be cruel to animals

Opinion

Pollution sends an interstellar message

Opinion

Health

Stop giving antipsychotics to people with dementia

Opinion

Space

The moon belongs to no one – yet

Opinion

Life

Venki Ramakrishnan: A Nobel display of modesty

Opinion

Features

The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?

Technology

The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?

Holds more secrets than you may think THERE are certain things you do not want to share with strangers. In my case it was a stream of highly personal text messages from my husband, sent during the early days of our relationship. Etched on my phone's SIM card – but invisible on my current handset …

Features

Technology

Solving the crystal maze: The secrets of structure

Features

Life

Six diseases you never knew you could catch

Features

1 Obesity

Features

2 Diabetes

Features

3 Schizophrenia

Features

4 Breast cancer

Features

5 Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Features

6 Prostate cancer

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 1567

My round A group of friends and I each had a half-pint of shandy (beer mixed with lemonade), but the proportion of lemonade to beer varied from glass to glass. Overall, I had a certain whole-number percentage of the lemonade used in the round of drinks, and a certain whole-number percentage of the beer. The …

Regulars

What's hot on NewScientist.com

Regulars

Life

Time isn't what it used to be

Books & Arts

Life

Bouncing back: How we deal with bereavement

Books & Arts

Harnessing happiness: A genetic fable

Books & Arts

Life

Flight, camera, action: Improve your bird photos

Books & Arts

Earth

Facing extinction: Conservation in North America

Books & Arts

David Haines: Love songs to science

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.

In the beginning, again

And the word was "Rebooting" MORE than 60 Feedback readers responded to our request for "the Word" that might have been in the beginning, or even be heard in the echoes of the big bang (5 September) . Here are our favourites, so far. Having just read Belinda Anyos's suggestion for an ergotopographical sign – …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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