Subscribe now

This week's magazine

23 January 2010

Issue 2744

New Scientist issue 2744 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
Subscribe
Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

Editor's picks

Exolanguage: do you speak alien?

Life

Exolanguage: do you speak alien?

Features
The face of first contact: What aliens look like

Life

The face of first contact: What aliens look like

Features
Horizontal and vertical: The evolution of evolution

Life

Horizontal and vertical: The evolution of evolution

Features
Spasers set to sum: A new dawn for optical computing

Technology

Spasers set to sum: A new dawn for optical computing

Features
Zap that fat: Can lasers make you slimmer in minutes?

Technology

Zap that fat: Can lasers make you slimmer in minutes?

Features

Table of contents

News

Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point'

Earth

Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point'

A catastrophic collapse is imminent, according to the latest study A major Antarctic glacier may have passed its tipping point, according to a new modelling study. After losing increasing amounts of ice over the past decades, it is poised to collapse in a catastrophe that could raise global sea levels by 24 centimetres. Pine Island …

News

Life

Anxious or sexually competitive? Try God

News

Technology

'Intelligent' oil droplet navigates chemical maze

News

Life

Drug-resistant HIV set for rapid upsurge

News

Health

Stay young on red wine drugs? Think again

News

Earth

Caribbean at risk of more large earthquakes

News

Earth

Alaska faces Exxon Valdez clean-up conundrum

News

Life

Zebrafish make good 'guinea pigs' for human drugs

News

Technology

Panic walking gets robot out of sticky situations

News

Life

Deep-sea snail shell could inspire next-gen armour

News

Space

Ares I is 'safest choice' to replace shuttle

News

Health

Analysis: Swine flu is not just a hoax by big pharma

News

Space

Approaching Earth makes asteroids go pale

News

Death tolls may loom too large in the fog of war

News

Space shuttles for sale

News

Earth

America 'imports' pollution from Asia

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

The entropy force: a new direction for gravity

News

Earth

Engineered maize toxicity claims roundly rebuffed

News

Space

Hidden asteroids are stalking the Earth

News

Life

Brain asymmetry eases hypnotic trance

News

Tentacled snakes feel their way to a midnight feast

News

Physics

Pebble splashes break the speed of sound

News

Alcohol during pregnancy chemically alters fetal DNA

News

Life

Intense males have the best sperm

News

Life

Brain-cell grid gives references for mental maps

News

Technology

Embedded electronics bring pop-up books to life

News

Earth

Smart mud could be the new plastic

News

Technology

Internet backbone breaks the 100-gigabit barrier

News

Technology

Quartz rods could provide instant bomb detector

News

Technology

To beat spam, turn its own weapons against it

News

Opinion

How the US exports its mental illnesses

Health

How the US exports its mental illnesses

Psychological reactions to war trauma in Afghanistan are experienced differently to western diagnosis IN THIS age of globalisation, you would expect people to value and be sensitive about their local differences and diversity. And few areas could be more critical than different peoples' understanding of the human mind when it comes to mental health and …

Opinion

Hello ET, we come in peace

Opinion

Blob intelligence is not unlike our own

Opinion

Taking gravity out of Newton's orchard

Opinion

Health

It's lack of balance that makes skunk cannabis do harm

Opinion

Earth

Reality TV show puts contestants into the Sahara

Opinion

Features

Exolanguage: do you speak alien?

Life

Exolanguage: do you speak alien?

We've tried messaging extraterrestrials in geek speak – but we've had no replies. Maybe we should stop trying to make sense and just gabble

Features

Life

The face of first contact: What aliens look like

Features

Life

Horizontal and vertical: The evolution of evolution

Features

Technology

Spasers set to sum: A new dawn for optical computing

Features

Technology

Zap that fat: Can lasers make you slimmer in minutes?

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 1579

Fifteen In the addition sum on the right the digits have been replaced by letters and smiley faces. Different letters stand for different digits, the same letter stands for the same digit, a smiley face can be any digit, and leading digits cannot be zero. If FIVE is divisible by 5 and ELEVEN is divisible …

Regulars

A leap too far in this multiverse explanation of time

Books & Arts

About time, too: Your questions answered

Books & Arts

Understanding fear in brain and body

Books & Arts

Intellectual adventure worthy of a very big birthday

Books & Arts

Rival theories transmuted into a Parisian intrigue

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.

Riddle of the quantum potato

COMMENTING on Feedback's report on Jonathan Rowles's attempt to synthesise his reading of New Scientist and The Psychologist by invoking the concept of "quantum psychology" (28 November) , Jon Sutton, editor of The Psychologist , wrote to us (Letters, 9 January , p 27) recalling that he once spent a few weeks on placement in …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop