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This week's magazine

14 January 2012

Issue 2847

New Scientist issue 2847 cover
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Editor's picks

Art-ificial: The virtual virtuosos redefining creativity

Technology

Art-ificial: The virtual virtuosos redefining creativity

Features
ESP evidence airs science's dirty laundry

Physics

ESP evidence airs science's dirty laundry

Features
Roaming quakes: is New York or London due a big one?

Earth

Roaming quakes: is New York or London due a big one?

Features
Superstuff: When quantum goes big

Physics

Superstuff: When quantum goes big

Features

Table of contents

News

Thinnest silicon-chip wires refuse to go quantum

Technology

Thinnest silicon-chip wires refuse to go quantum

Saving Moore's law? Not everything is weird at the nanoscale. Wires so small you'd expect them to obey the strange laws of quantum mechanics have instead displayed the same electrical properties as ordinary electrical interconnects. The finding bodes well for conventional computers, because these tiny, conductive wires could make chips smaller. It could be bad …

News

Technology

Kopimism: the world's newest religion explained

News

Life

First plant to use buried leaves to catch worms found

News

Life

Lizards may be made smarter by warming world

News

Earth

Fracking risk is exaggerated

News

Space

Largest dark matter map holds clues to dark energy

News

Health

FDA bans some – but not all – farmyard antibiotics

News

Exhaustive search solves fiendish Sudoku mystery

News

Health

UK politicians say take two alcohol-free days a week

News

Doctor linking MMR vaccine and autism sues critics

News

Earth

Last year costliest on record for natural disasters

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

Why physicists can't avoid a creation event

News

Space

Naked black-hole hearts live in the fifth dimension

News

Health

One mistake away from a worldwide flu pandemic

News

Before DNA, before RNA: Life in the hodge-podge world

News

Health

Hormone can mimic effects of a good workout

News

How DNA contamination can affect court cases

News

Health

Gold nano 'ears' set to listen in on cells

News

Earth

Mystery of the moving Antarctic lakes

News

Health

Blood test on mother detects fetus's sex at five weeks

News

Health

MS damage washed away by stream of young blood

News

Life

Budgies find yawns irresistible too

News

Technology

Retina cell growth measured by lasers

News

Technology

Wristband plugs you into smart buildings

News

Technology

Learn a language, translate the web

News

Technology

Software could spot face-changing criminals

News

Technology

Bitcoin online currency gets new job in web security

News

Technology

Loud-mouthed Wi-Fi devices could use sound to connect

News

Space

Milky Way brims with planets

News

Opinion

Remember Scott's legacy of Antarctic science

Remember Scott's legacy of Antarctic science

Scott’s reputation as an explorer has taken a battering in recent years, but he deserves reappraisal for his dedication to science

Opinion

Life

Into the mind of a Neanderthal

Opinion

Health

We need to fix the holey biosafety net

Opinion

Physics

The Genesis problem

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.

Sounding out the sky

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science SVALBARD – the most northerly outpost of Norway and home to some 3000 polar bears – is an isolated group of glacier-covered islands deep within the Arctic Circle. As we know only …

Regulars

Features

Roaming quakes: is New York or London due a big one?

Earth

Roaming quakes: is New York or London due a big one?

Lurking clusters of seismic energy could explain why large earthquakes have occurred where we least expected them

Features

Physics

ESP evidence airs science's dirty laundry

Features

Technology

Art-ificial: The virtual virtuosos redefining creativity

Features

Physics

Superstuff: When quantum goes big

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.

Trying to make the cosmos out of nothing

A Universe From Nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing by Lawrence Krauss is excellent guide to cutting-edge physics; less good on theology Editorial: " The Genesis problem " IN 1996, Lawrence Krauss visited the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. During his time there he gave a talk on his latest idea – …

CultureLab

Algorithm engines of the networked world

CultureLab

Looking inside medics' minds

CultureLab

Plastic surgeons: the 21st century's portrait artists

CultureLab

How many languages can one person speak?

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 1680

Do magic I have constructed a 3×3 magic square – that is, it contains nine different whole numbers and each row, column and main diagonal has the same sum. But my numbers are in a base other than 10 and I have used letters for the higher "digits", namely A for 10, B for 11, …

Regulars

Happy and you know it

Careers

The happiness equation – the making of a satisfied scientist

Careers

Words from the wise: Jenny Rohn

Careers

Words from the wise: Andre Geim

Careers

Words from the wise: Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

Careers

Words from the wise: Chris Bishop

Careers

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: Come back and take this hurt off me

Come back and take this hurt off me WHAT can explain a report in Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on 1 December? Evert Stefansson had both legs amputated as a result of diabetes. A powered wheelchair would improve the quality of his life, so he applied to the Södermanland local authority for funds. Reader Lars Gislen …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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