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This week's magazine

16 July 2011

Issue 2821

New Scientist issue 2821 cover
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Editor's picks

Kiki or bouba? In search of language's missing link

Life

Kiki or bouba? In search of language's missing link

Features
The children who grow old before they grow up

Health

The children who grow old before they grow up

Features
Not so simple: Bacteria with backbone

Life

Not so simple: Bacteria with backbone

Features
Welcome to the age of the splinternet

Technology

Welcome to the age of the splinternet

Features
Not so simple: Big beasts of the bacterial jungle

Not so simple: Big beasts of the bacterial jungle

Features
Not so simple: Bugs that hunt in packs

Health

Not so simple: Bugs that hunt in packs

Features
Not so simple: The good of the many bacteria

Life

Not so simple: The good of the many bacteria

Features
Not so simple: Gulping bugs with the nuclear option

Life

Not so simple: Gulping bugs with the nuclear option

Features

Table of contents

News

Pain molecule find could take the sting out of sunburn

Health

Pain molecule find could take the sting out of sunburn

Chemokines fizzing As many a sun worshipper will testify, the agony of sunburn can last for days. Now a molecule responsible has been identified – and that could lead to new painkillers and might also help explain the root of chronic pain conditions like arthritis. Steve McMahon at Kings College London and colleagues used ultraviolet-B …

News

Earth

Second world war bombers changed the weather

News

Earth

Australia's shiny new carbon tax is an empty promise

News

Life

Newts able to regenerate body parts indefinitely

News

Life

Smart lizard solves a problem it's never seen before

News

Health

World's first double leg transplant performed in Spain

News

Health

Artificially grown tooth transplanted into mouse

News

Technology

Newspaper phone-hacking scandal goes beyond voicemail

News

Congress proposes nixing flagship telescope

News

Earthly cargo lofted to orbit on shuttle's final flight

News

Earth

US pollution rules could save $280 billion a year

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

Hologram revolution: The theory changing all physics

News

Health

Stem cell therapies move into the real world

News

Earth

Crop disease to add to east Africa's woes

News

Health

Women with cancer can keep their ovaries

News

Physics

Quantum quirk makes carbon dating possible

News

Life

Human history recorded in a single genome

News

Kinky genes: Biophysics of DNA affects how it works

News

Life

Salt or cocaine, a fix is a basic instinct

News

Technology

Low-energy pulses mean safer heart defibrillation

News

Technology

Augmented instruments add virtual input to live music

News

Technology

Twitter to track dengue fever outbreaks in Brazil

News

Technology

Computers understand hand-waving descriptions

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Earth

Polymer sandwich harvests electricity from waste heat

News

Technology

Vibrating touchscreens that give you a push back

News

Health

Superbug gonorrhoea found in Japan

News

Health

Sluggish movement at altitude is partly a brain effect

News

Earth

Overfishing eats away at genetic diversity of fish

News

Space

Dark-energy fingerprints found in ancient radiation

News

Opinion

The human paradox that is common sense

Life

The human paradox that is common sense

Crowd behaviour is not always common sense Even as common sense helps us make sense of human behaviour, it can undermine our ability to understand it IN JANUARY 1998, about halfway through my first year out of graduate school, where I'd just completed a PhD in engineering, my housemate handed me a copy of New …

Opinion

Space

Why South Africa wants Earth's biggest radio telescope

Opinion

US stem cell research in robust health

Opinion

The rise of the splinternet

Opinion

Phone-hacking: new technology, ancient psychology

Opinion

Humans

The high cost of being a woman in science

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.

Howling haboob smothers Phoenix

A WALL of dust and debris advanced through Arizona last week, inundating the city of Phoenix. During the dust storm, which hit the city on 5 July, there was near-zero visibility and winds of up to 110 kilometres per hour, according to the Phoenix office of the US National Weather Service . Radar data suggests …

Regulars

Features

Kiki or bouba? In search of language's missing link

Life

Kiki or bouba? In search of language's missing link

Meaningful sounds Before reading this article, you might like to try our test: Which of these words sounds bigger? Through the looking glass, Lewis Carroll's Alice stumbles upon an enormous egg-shaped figure celebrating his un-birthday. She tries to introduce herself: "It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?" "Must a …

Features

Health

The children who grow old before they grow up

Features

Life

Not so simple: Bacteria with backbone

Features

Technology

Welcome to the age of the splinternet

Features

Not so simple: Big beasts of the bacterial jungle

Features

Health

Not so simple: Bugs that hunt in packs

Features

Life

Not so simple: The good of the many bacteria

Features

Life

Not so simple: Gulping bugs with the nuclear option

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.

Best robot in a lead role goes to…

Read more: Click here to read the original, longer version of this story You are starting the first robot film festival. Why? I am really interested in creating technology in collaboration with artists. They bring a different perspective to the table. The narrative in film is unique in that it lets you explore the future …

CultureLab

Revealing the secrets of the sun

CultureLab

The fact and fiction of discovery

CultureLab

Doctoring under the influence

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 1655

Number spotting I have been playing some number games with my nephew using five dice. For example, when viewing the dice as shown, we would interpret the number on the front as 23114 and the number on top as 11532. On one occasion I placed the five dice in a row on a table and …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Wikipedia's strange attractor

Feedback: Wikipedia's strange attractor

Philosophy: Wikipedia's strange attractor DOZENS of readers at least have, as we feared, spent hours investigating the number of hops from any given page on Wikipedia to its philosophy entry, following the first unitalicised and unparenthetical blue hyperlink on each subsequent entry (18 June) . First, though, Conrad Lawrence and James Simpson both say we …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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