Technology Cellphones are 'possibly' carcinogenic As dangerous as talcum powder Cellphones have been classed as "possibly carcinogenic to humans". That is the conclusion issued yesterday by 31 experts following a week-long meeting in Lyon, France, convened by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). They concluded that there is "limited" evidence suggesting that mobile phones raise … News
A field guide to bullshit How do people defend their beliefs in bizarre conspiracy theories or the power of crystals? Philosopher Stephen Law has tips for spotting their strategies You describe your new book, Believing Bullshit , as a guide to avoid getting sucked into "intellectual black holes". What are they? Intellectual black holes are belief systems that draw people … Opinion
Bolivia's stunning salt flats See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science THE Salar de Uyuni salt flats of Bolivia, covering more than 10,000 square kilometres, are the most extensive in the world, and so level that the surface is used to calibrate the … Regulars
Technology The defenders: Inside an online siege Editorial: " The cyber-enemy at the gate " Battling the dark side Who will protect your money, your identity and your secrets from hackers? New Scientist joins a bunch of hopefuls to find out if they're up to the task 5 March 2011, 10:59:59 Time remaining 00:50:00 In a quiet, windowless auditorium in Bristol, in … Features
Whales in close-up UNDERWATER photographer Charles "Flip" Nicklin has two main rules: "Shoot something new, or something old in such an original way that it's new again, and get close to the action." In Among Giants he follows these rules to the letter – with stunning results. Spanning three decades of Nicklin's career as a free-diving photographer for … CultureLab
Enigma Number 1650 Some prime magic The diagram on the right is a magic square in which the letters A, B, ...P, Q each represent a positive whole number not exceeding 200. Taken together, the 16 letters form, in some order, an arithmetic sequence of 16 terms. The letters E, N, I, G, M and A form, in … Regulars
Feedback: Flying faeces in the lab Flying faeces in the lab WE CONCLUDED our report on grasshoppers that play football with their faeces with the words "now that this aspect of the grasshopper lifestyle has been so thoroughly investigated, putative authors searching for an original topic will just have to find something else" (30 April) . We were reckoning without Jon … Regulars