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This week's magazine

25 February 2012

Issue 2853

New Scientist issue 2853 cover
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Editor's picks

Natural gas – a fuel too far?

Earth

Natural gas – a fuel too far?

Features
Strange skies: Cosmic confusion in the clouds

Strange skies: Cosmic confusion in the clouds

Features
Strange skies: Invisible beings that live far above

Strange skies: Invisible beings that live far above

Features
Strange skies: Turbocharged auroras

Strange skies: Turbocharged auroras

Features
Strange skies: Mighty air tides

Strange skies: Mighty air tides

Features
Strange skies: Lightning should be impossible

Strange skies: Lightning should be impossible

Features
Strange skies: Weird earthquake warning lights

Strange skies: Weird earthquake warning lights

Features
Strange skies: When will our air become unbreathable?

Strange skies: When will our air become unbreathable?

Features
Coaxing the heart to heal itself

Health

Coaxing the heart to heal itself

Features
Total recall: Diary of a lifelogger

Life

Total recall: Diary of a lifelogger

Features

Table of contents

News

Why ancient star clusters are all the same size

Space

Why ancient star clusters are all the same size

A survivor brightcove.createExperiences(); Video: How star clusters in merging galaxies evolve Why do the universe's oldest star clusters tend to be roughly the same size? New simulations suggest it's because galaxy mergers destroyed the smaller ones. Globular star clusters are ancient, spherical blobs of stars. Most are a few hundred thousand times the mass of …

News

Life

'Immortal' Tasmanian devil brings vaccine hope

News

Life

Parasite-plagued flies self-medicate on booze

News

Technology

Single atom transistor gets precise position on chip

News

Earth

Underground oasis found below Earth's driest desert

News

Health

Bipolar drug fixes damaged nerves to restore movement

News

Life

Plant blooms after 30,000 years in permafrost

News

Physics

Nash's beautiful mind pre-empted million-dollar puzzle

News

Earth

Boiled-to-death penguins are back from the brink

News

Health

Farmyard antibiotics linked to superbugs

News

Health

Diet pill aims for US regulatory approval

News

Health

Virginia law may demand invasive scan before abortion

News

Fracking not to blame for shale gas pollution

News

Earth

Europe will vote to keep Canadian tar sands out

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

Climate sceptics may find fertile ground in US schools

News

Space

Blame dark matter underdog for mystery missing lithium

News

DNA origami nanorobot takes drug direct to cancer cell

News

Life

Men's Y chromosome is not about to go extinct

News

Technology

Online spat over who joins memristor club

News

Health

Publish lethal flu virus work, says WHO

News

Earth

Japan's 2011 megaquake reactivated dormant faults

News

Life

Bacterial cheaters do not prosper

News

Early ungulate may have been first echolocating mammal

News

Life

'Fountain of youth' enzyme lengthens mouse life

News

Technology

USB stick can sequence DNA in seconds

News

Technology

Metaphorical search engine finds creative new meanings

News

Technology

Crowdsourcing improves predictive texting

News

Technology

Nuclear spies use earth and skies to up their game

News

Opinion

There's no sense in revising the psychiatrist's bible

Health

There's no sense in revising the psychiatrist's bible

Time for a new approach? Forget the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – we need a new system based on brain physiology, says psychiatrist Nick Craddock You don't believe we should update the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) used to classify mental illness. Why not? There are many reasons we should pause. The …

Opinion

Technology

Foiling the cheats in a world of high-tech trust

Opinion

Earth

Don't cloud young minds

Opinion

Health

Bioterror is not the biggest threat from bird flu

Opinion

Space

Light's speed limit is safe for now

Opinion

Analysis

Assad masses Syrian cyber army in online crackdown

Technology

Assad masses Syrian cyber army in online crackdown

Syria's violence against civilians is being matched with online abuses as the government uses hacking and surveillance tools to track its people

News

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.

Alien view of virtual Yosemite

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science PHOTOGRAPHY was a relatively new thing when Carleton Watkins visited California's Yosemite valley in 1861. His breathtaking images brought the wilderness to people who had never set foot in what was then …

Regulars

Features

Strange skies: Cosmic confusion in the clouds

Strange skies: Cosmic confusion in the clouds

Honeycomb-like clouds form when rain drives air jets down to the sea where they rise back up Read more: " Strange skies: Seven wonders of the atmosphere " The ice and water droplets of a cloud need seeds to start growing. While these may be mineral grains or even bacteria (see "Strange skies: Invisible beings …

Features

Strange skies: Invisible beings that live far above

Features

Strange skies: Turbocharged auroras

Features

Strange skies: Mighty air tides

Features

Strange skies: Lightning should be impossible

Features

Strange skies: Weird earthquake warning lights

Features

Strange skies: When will our air become unbreathable?

Features

Health

Coaxing the heart to heal itself

Features

Earth

Natural gas – a fuel too far?

Features

Life

Total recall: Diary of a lifelogger

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 secrets of solving mathematical puzzles

See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog In The Puzzler's Dilemma , professional puzzle-setter Derrick Niederman reveals the logic behind solving posers old and new PUZZLES are the gateway drug of the world of mathematics, enjoyed by recreational users …

CultureLab

The never-ending search for fresh ideas

CultureLab

Do we really need cash any more?

CultureLab

How Nazi laws stymied German nuclear dreams

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 1686

Squaring the circle A builder was contracted to pave a circular courtyard with square paving slabs having sides of length 1 metre. The radius of the courtyard was an exact number of metres. The slabs had to be laid in a rectangular grid with no gaps, and with four slabs meeting at the centre of …

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: The undiscovered country of puzzles

The undiscovered country from which a puzzle returns IT ONLY took 32 years to solve Enigma No 45. The version of the weekly New Scientist puzzle that was set in the issue of 3 January 1980 – a problem in linear algebra – was, it seemed, too difficult even for New Scientist 's notoriously clever …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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