Subscribe now

This week's magazine

25 December 2010

Issue 2792

New Scientist issue 2792 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

Smoked jellyfish: The roast of Christmas future

Earth

Smoked jellyfish: The roast of Christmas future

Features
Botanical ballistics: Nature's fastest plants

Life

Botanical ballistics: Nature's fastest plants

Features
Robot, robot, wherefore art thou robot?

Technology

Robot, robot, wherefore art thou robot?

Features
Booze myths: The truth at the bottom of the bottle

Health

Booze myths: The truth at the bottom of the bottle

Features
Getting medieval: The first firefights

Technology

Getting medieval: The first firefights

Features
The secret of secret Santa

Physics

The secret of secret Santa

Features
Extreme beer: No accounting for taste

Humans

Extreme beer: No accounting for taste

Features
Weird warriors: The animal world's dirtiest fighters

Life

Weird warriors: The animal world's dirtiest fighters

Features
Cheeseology: How to throw the perfect bacterial party

Life

Cheeseology: How to throw the perfect bacterial party

Features
Jingle hells: How muzak messes with your mind

Earth

Jingle hells: How muzak messes with your mind

Features
From god to gobbler: How the turkey got its breast

Life

From god to gobbler: How the turkey got its breast

Features
Hunters hunted: The revenge of robo-deer

Technology

Hunters hunted: The revenge of robo-deer

Features
Sozzled superconductors sizzle with speed

Physics

Sozzled superconductors sizzle with speed

Features
Toy-de-force: Inside the steampunk Lego lab

Technology

Toy-de-force: Inside the steampunk Lego lab

Features

Table of contents

News

Microwave radiation map hints at other universes

Space

Microwave radiation map hints at other universes

The four candidate "bruises" are in the lower-right quadrant of this all-sky map of the CMB, in green, light blue, red and orange (edge of image) Update on 16 August 2011 : The researchers ran additional statistical checks on the CMB data, looking at the probability that the bubbles would appear anywhere on the sky. …

News

Technology

No black holes found at LHC – yet

News

Life

Wild chimps make their own 'dolls'

News

Life

Breastfeeding boosts schoolboys' brains, not girls'

News

Health

Autistic ability falters in real world

News

Fantastical physics: read the Victorian originals

News

Want to know your disease risk? Check your exposome

News

Life

Border collie takes record for biggest vocabulary

News

Our adventures in culturomics

News

Earth

The evolutionary burst that made Earth oxygen-rich

News

Life

New genes needed for survival too

News

Going global: How solar eruptions are connected

News

Technology

Chemistry helps to trap the Trappist imitators

News

Technology

Turn back time to deafen enemy divers

News

In with the New Scientist: Our predictions for 2011

News

2010 review: A year in brief

News

Physics

2011 preview: No 'magic' element just yet

News

Space

2011 preview: Expect Earth's twin planet

News

Physics

2011 preview: Million-dollar mathematics problem

News

Technology

2011 preview: Peak internet comes into view

News

Earth

2011 preview: Charge of the electric car

News

Health

2011 preview: Crunch time for stem cells

News

Space

2011 preview: Private space flight takes off

News

Technology

2011 preview: Enter the robot self

News

Space

Superhero move may save black holes from nakedness

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.

The future of futurology

FUTUROLOGY has a chequered past. Croesus, king of Lydia, consulted the oracle at Delphi and was advised, "if King Croesus should cross the Halys river, a great empire would be destroyed". Believing the oracle's divination to be favourable, Croesus attacked Persia in 547 BC. However, it was his own empire that ultimately crumbled. Today's oracles …

Opinion

When the environment gets personal

Opinion

Life

Don't send bugs to Mars

Opinion

Space

Apollo 13: Houston, we've had a problem

Opinion

Life

Total recall: Data diaries explain who you really are

Opinion

Life

Ray Kurzweil: Building bridges to immortality

Opinion

Features

Toy-de-force: Inside the steampunk Lego lab

Technology

Toy-de-force: Inside the steampunk Lego lab

Video: World's oldest computer recreated in Lego What the Victorians were missing Make your own ancient Lego tech: "No magnet required: How to build a compass out of Lego" History's greatest fantastical contraptions – the Difference Engine and the Antikythera mechanism – are back, with a playful twist ANDREW CAROL'S computers can calculate the solutions …

Features

Life

Botanical ballistics: Nature's fastest plants

Features

Technology

Robot, robot, wherefore art thou robot?

Features

Health

Booze myths: The truth at the bottom of the bottle

Features

Technology

Getting medieval: The first firefights

Features

Physics

The secret of secret Santa

Features

Humans

Extreme beer: No accounting for taste

Features

Life

Weird warriors: The animal world's dirtiest fighters

Features

Life

Cheeseology: How to throw the perfect bacterial party

Features

Earth

Smoked jellyfish: The roast of Christmas future

Features

Earth

Jingle hells: How muzak messes with your mind

Features

Life

From god to gobbler: How the turkey got its breast

Features

Technology

Hunters hunted: The revenge of robo-deer

Features

Physics

Sozzled superconductors sizzle with speed

Features

Culturelab

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.

Flash fiction 2010: Futures that never happened

WINNER: Atomic Dreams By Jérôme Cigut, UK NY Times, 1937 Tesla Presents Nuclear Engine The famous inventor yesterday unveiled the machine on which he had been working reclusively for the past 10 years: a functioning heat engine, based not on combustion but on recently discovered atomic reactions. "All it took was some plumbing skills," the …

CultureLab

Near-death neurologist: Dreams on the border of life

CultureLab

Solve this sci-fi thriller and reap the rewards

CultureLab

The scientist pope who lit up the Dark Ages

CultureLab

More

New Scientist 2010 holiday quiz

New Scientist 2010 holiday quiz

According to researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, what might betray the presence of life on Mars (18 September)? a) Smelly chemicals also present in human flatulence b) Dirty stains on the carbon dioxide ice caps c) Gooey exudations on the sheltered walls of some deep canyons d) City lights The father of the fractal, …

Regulars

Enigma Number 1627

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.

Feedback: Regrettable lack of volcanoes in Essex

Regrettable lack of volcanoes in Essex OUR item about a University of Buffalo press release reporting on the development of a "geological hazards facility" (4 December) prompted an email from reader Nicholas Macy that rather took us by surprise. "Your mention of 'study of full-scale volcanoes' took me back to when our daughter was studying …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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