Subscribe now

This week's magazine

15 May 2010

Issue 2760

New Scientist issue 2760 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

Did exploding stars shatter life's mirror?

Life

Did exploding stars shatter life's mirror?

Features
Omega-3: Fishy claims for fish oil

Health

Omega-3: Fishy claims for fish oil

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.

Earth

Republicans won't be nudged into cutting home energy

It was hailed as a breakthrough in the fight to cut carbon emissions. In 2007, researchers found that heavy electricity users cut their consumption after being told that they used more energy than their neighbours . Almost a million US households have since received similar feedback and have cut electricity use by an average of …

News

Earth

Cosmic 'dandruff' may have brought carbon to Earth

News

Technology

Is water the key to cheaper nanoelectronics?

News

Space

Scramjet with stamina ready for hypersonic test

News

Life

Gene switch rejuvenates failing mouse brains

News

Earth

Bugs will give us free power while cleaning our sewage

News

Life

Hand-washing wipes emotional baggage from decisions

News

Life

Eye-squint-cheek-bulge means 'ouch'

News

Earth

Bahamas islands were giant labs for lizard experiment

News

Earth

Dents in Earth's gravitational field due to plumes

News

Space

Newton's tree joins list of odd items to fly to space

News

Earth

Oil industry failed to heed blowout warnings

News

Life

Soft tissue remnants discovered in Archaeopteryx fossil

News

Earth

Stray grey whale navigates the North-West Passage

News

Space

Crumbling labs could clip NASA's wings

News

Life

Witness brain scan won't reveal whether the face fits

News

Health

Zap testes with ultrasound for temporary 'vasectomy'

News

Health

Baby vaccine contaminated with pig virus

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Cancer's sweet tooth becomes a target

News

Life

Neanderthals not the only apes humans bred with

News

Space

Quantum space monster leaps from a gravity well

News

Space

Maiden voyage for first true space sail

News

Earth

Weed resistance could mean herbicide is futile

News

Physics

Pyramids are the best shape for packing

News

Health

Artificial skin graft promises to make you sweat

News

Life

Bonding hormone helps men recognise emotions

News

Technology

Infrared cameras could stop road tunnel fires

News

Technology

Rocket-assisted pills pack a punch to the gut

News

Technology

New deep-sea cables needed to protect global economy

News

Space

Venus orbiter to fly close to super-rotating wind

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.

Welcome to the family, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

WE HUMANS like to see ourselves as special, at the very pinnacle of all life. That makes us keen to keep a safe distance between ourselves and related species that threaten our sense of uniqueness. Unfortunately, the evidence can sometimes make that difficult. Decades ago, when the primatologist Jane Goodall told anthropologist Louis Leakey that …

Opinion

Environment

The lesson of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Opinion

Omega-3: Best taken with a big pinch of salt

Opinion

On NewScientist.com

Opinion

Life

Flab rats: Unfit animals are bad for experiments

Opinion

UK election: did candidates with the right face win?

Opinion

Special report: Living in denial

Opinion

Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

Opinion

Life

Living in denial: Why sensible people reject the truth

Opinion

Living in denial: How corporations manufacture doubt

Opinion

Life

Living in denial: Unleashing a lie

Opinion

Living in denial: Questioning science isn't blasphemy

Opinion

Living in denial: The truth is our only weapon

Opinion

Features

Did exploding stars shatter life's mirror?

Life

Did exploding stars shatter life's mirror?

Explosive twist MR SPOCK is dying. Fortunately for the crew of the USS Enterprise, the Spock in question is not the real one, but an evil mirror-image version created in a freak transporter malfunction. This Spock's back-to-front body can digest only right-handed amino acids; meanwhile, like all organic matter, the food around him is made …

Features

Health

Omega-3: Fishy claims for fish oil

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 1595

All mapped out My house appears on each of three overlapping local maps. Each map is half a metre square and all are to the same scale. To ease map handling, I have produced a composite version by pasting them on top of one another to form a single sheet which correctly aligns all the …

Regulars

Where we're at with geoengineering

Books & Arts

How we get others to do what we want

Books & Arts

The ant way to success

Books & Arts

Ten speculations on the solar system

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.

It's raining elephants

It's raining elephants SEARCHING for metaphors to illuminate the meaning of numbers can all too often lead writers into dark places. Mary Vango, for example, was a bit surprised by what the magazine of the UK consumer rights group Which? had to say in a report on food packaging: "The average bacon packet was nearly …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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