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This week's magazine

22 January 2011

Issue 2796

New Scientist issue 2796 cover
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Editor's picks

Quantum reality: The many meanings of life

Physics

Quantum reality: The many meanings of life

Features
The hurt blocker: Scans pin down pain in the brain

Health

The hurt blocker: Scans pin down pain in the brain

Features
What if the Earth stopped spinning?

Earth

What if the Earth stopped spinning?

Features
Soft-centred fossils reveal dinosaurs' true colours

Earth

Soft-centred fossils reveal dinosaurs' true colours

Features

Table of contents

News

Spinning cosmic dust motes set speed record

Space

Spinning cosmic dust motes set speed record

Fast-spinning hotspot in the cosmic microwave background Some dust grains out in deep space are spinning at mind-boggling rates. According to data from the European Space Agency's Planck space telescope, these interstellar particles are turning on their axis tens of billions of times every second. The measurements, which set a record for spinning objects, could …

News

Earth

Fall of Roman Empire linked to wild shifts in climate

News

Technology

Car batteries run on relativity

News

Technology

Cyberwar countermeasures a waste of money, says report

News

Earth

Plagues of lemmings driven by winter breeding

News

Life

The genetic basis of friendship networks

News

Earth

Chinese megacities foster unlikely green citizens

News

Space

Stormy words over NASA's rocket deadline

News

Southern Sudan's votes could kill an ancient disease

News

Earth

The economic jungle: How ecologists could save banking

News

Health

Would you eat eight fruit and veg a day?

News

Earth

Sterile giant tortoises used as Galapagos lawnmowers

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Faecal transplant eases symptoms of Parkinson's

News

Earth

Telltale chemistry could betray ET

News

Earth

Slime moulds bet the farm on survival

News

Life

Quantum states last longer in birds' eyes

News

Space

Why space taxis might be safer than NASA's shuttle

News

Earth

Hunt for the molecules that hold ecosystems together

News

Health

Smoking puts DNA at risk in 15 minutes

News

Explosive death for MRSA

News

Life

Wine family tree revealed

News

Earth

Online games reveal players' personalities – to who?

News

Technology

Cooperative cellphone networks could cut energy waste

News

Technology

Sony sues over PS3 encryption hack

News

Technology

Virtual blood and smoke give gore to student surgeons

News

Technology

Compact 'eyeball' camera stretches to zoom

News

Technology

First silicon entanglement will aid quantum computing

News

Life

Transsexual differences caught on brain scan

News

Opinion

Amazon activist: I will not give up the fight

Earth

Amazon activist: I will not give up the fight

Nursing the rainforest back to health Evicted at gunpoint from the vast Bolivian national park she helped set up, Rosa Maria Ruiz is still battling to protect threatened areas of rainforest WE ARE two hours into our journey down Bolivia's Beni river in a motorised dug-out canoe when I notice a strange movement under Rosa …

Opinion

Don't fear the f-word in quantum physics

Opinion

A vote against the guinea worm

Opinion

Why we need to respect bacterial culture

Opinion

Life

Remember the lessons of past clinical trials abuses

Opinion

Space

Internet activist: Why I want to buy a satellite

Opinion

Features

Quantum reality: The many meanings of life

Physics

Quantum reality: The many meanings of life

Editorial: " Don't fear the f-word in quantum physics " Where the weird things are Quantum theory is a scientific masterpiece – but physicists still aren't sure what to make of it A CENTURY, it seems, is not enough. One hundred years ago this year, the first world physics conference took place in Brussels, Belgium. …

Features

Health

The hurt blocker: Scans pin down pain in the brain

Features

Earth

What if the Earth stopped spinning?

Features

Earth

Soft-centred fossils reveal dinosaurs' true colours

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.

The challenge of the great cosmic unknowns

In The 4% Universe: Dark matter, dark energy, and the race to discover the rest of reality , Richard Panek explains how we came to know so little IT IS an embarrassment, to say the least. Scientists have no idea what most of the universe is made of. In fact, a whopping 96 per cent …

CultureLab

The gospel of gaming

CultureLab

ET rocks: Loving the geological alien

CultureLab

Pulling the plug: living without the internet

CultureLab

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 1630

Powering up ENIGMA is a number in which the digits are different and non-zero. ENIGMA is divisible without remainder by E, by the square NI, and by the cube GMA. What is ENIGMA? WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 23 February. The Editor's decision is …

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: George Orwell, Big Brother and reality TV

George Orwell, Big Brother and reality TV AT THE end of last year, Alastair Beaven asked if readers had examples of people using words in a novel sense without knowing their original meaning – and he wondered if this phenomenon has a name (25 December). He gave the example of an interpreter in Afghanistan who …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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