Subscribe now

This week's magazine

28 May 2011

Issue 2814

New Scientist issue 2814 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

Man's best friends: How animals made us human

Life

Man's best friends: How animals made us human

Features
Into the breeches: A makeover for Longitude's villain

Space

Into the breeches: A makeover for Longitude's villain

Features
Mind readers: Eavesdropping on your inner voice

Life

Mind readers: Eavesdropping on your inner voice

Features
Bike to the drawing board

Technology

Bike to the drawing board

Features

Table of contents

News

Early mammals were brainy and nosy

Life

Early mammals were brainy and nosy

My, what big olfactory bulbs you have The early Jurassic might be famous as the point in prehistory that dinosaurs began to grow into giants , but something else was growing larger at that time too: the brains of early mammal-like animals. That could be because smell and touch were vital for their survival during …

News

Earth

Liquid crystals could detect contaminated water

News

Life

Llama muck and maize revolution drove Inca success

News

Life

Gene for tooth enamel could prevent decay

News

Space

Milky Way faces midlife crisis

News

Earth

Deforestation rises as Brazil debates protection laws

News

Technology

Twitter forces rethink on English privacy law

News

Earth

Zoologger: Clone army steals genes from other species

News

Health

America celebrates top 10 health advances

News

Technology

Faster laser promises cheaper data transmission

News

Life

Is a mutated fungus killing American bats?

News

Grímsvötn volcano spews more ash than Eyjafjallajökull

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

Reshaping the Mississippi for a warmer future

News

Earth

African land grab could lead to future water conflicts

News

Life

Brain scans reveal why some people feel your pain

News

Technology

Call to delay judgement on cellphone brain cancer risk

News

Health

Skin 'cast' helps wounds heal with minimal scarring

News

Technology

First images from Great Pyramid's chamber of secrets

News

Limbless turtle embryos move to egg hotspot

News

Health

Cross your arms to relieve pain

News

Physics

Ultracold measurements reveal shape of the electron

News

Space

Birthplace of 'hot Neptunes' revealed

News

Life

Could milk get ultraviolet treatment?

News

Technology

Digital human actors set to break into the big time

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Earth

Wind power harnesses the energy of galloping

News

Earth

China's hydropower proponents unfazed by Three Gorges

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.

Mississippi delta blues

When humans try to constrain rivers, the results can be calamitous LIVING beside North America's greatest river is inevitably going to be fraught at times. This week, many residents along the Mississippi are counting the cost of the worst floods on record. As New Scientist went to press, Baton Rouge and New Orleans seems to …

Opinion

Let the mind-reading begin

Opinion

Lights, computer, action!

Opinion

Earth

Time to wave the green-spangled banner

Opinion

Earth

Nuclear inspector: What we can learn from Fukushima

Opinion

Earth

Elephant expert: Busting myths of Nature's masterpiece

Opinion

Aperture

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.

Missouri tornado death toll is highest for 50 years

Read more: Click here to read the original version of this story THE tornado that carved its way through south-western Missouri on Sunday left a 10-kilometre trail of death and destruction in its wake. The city of Joplin bore the brunt, and at least 89 people died. The death toll is the highest from a …

Regulars

Features

Man's best friends: How animals made us human

Life

Man's best friends: How animals made us human

Video: How animals made us human Creature contact Our bond with animals goes far deeper than food and companionship: it drove our ancestors to develop tools and language TRAVEL almost anywhere in the world and you will see something so common that it may not even catch your attention. Wherever there are people, there are …

Features

Space

Into the breeches: A makeover for Longitude's villain

Features

Life

Mind readers: Eavesdropping on your inner voice

Features

Technology

Bike to the drawing board

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.

Intel anthropologist: Fieldwork with the silicon tribe

Anthropologist Genevieve Bell gives the chip maker insight into how people experience new technologies How did you come to work as an anthropologist with a tech firm? My mother was an anthropologist. I grew up in Australia on field sites and Aboriginal settlements, running around with no shoes and killing my supper. My father and …

CultureLab

The prison of our beliefs and how to escape it

CultureLab

Lost giants of the Pleistocene

CultureLab

Putting illness on an exhaustive map

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 1648

Enigmarred Below I have listed seven numbers, but I have coded them by consistently replacing digits with letters, with different letters used for different digits: CINEMA, ECZEMA, EMMA, ENEMA, ENIGMA, MAMMA, STIGMA. All but one of the seven numbers is divisible by 9. Which word represents the number which is not divisible by 9? WIN …

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: Norse god has a day of his own

Norse god has a day of his own IN OUR piece questioning the use of the "janitor's apostrophe" in the phrase "Tue's night" (30 April) , we apparently betrayed a lamentable ignorance of Norse mythology. "Tuesday is named after the god Tyr or Tiw," Stephen Ashton admonishes us. "So Tuesday night is the night of …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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