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This week's magazine

26 May 2012

Issue 2866

New Scientist issue 2866 cover
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Editor's picks

The argumentative ape: Why we're wired to persuade

Life

The argumentative ape: Why we're wired to persuade

Features
Genius networks: Link to a more creative social circle

Technology

Genius networks: Link to a more creative social circle

Features
Nuclear alchemy: Thorium promises power from waste

Earth

Nuclear alchemy: Thorium promises power from waste

Features
Men and women: Different brains, same aims

Life

Men and women: Different brains, same aims

Features

Table of contents

News

Pulsar heavyweight champ challenges Einstein

Space

Pulsar heavyweight champ challenges Einstein

Dense: J0348+0432 is the heaviest pulsar yet recorded The densest objects in the universe have a new heavyweight champion: a pulsar so small that it could nearly fit onto the island of Manhattan but weighs in at 2.04 times the mass of the sun. The pulsar could be used to help test Einstein's theory of …

News

Space

Magnetic space whirlpools give Mercury a plasma shower

News

Health

'Gay cure' psychiatrist apologises for flawed study

News

Health

Michael J. Fox sidelines stem cells for Parkinson's

News

Dragon in orbit as SpaceX launch opens new era

News

Controversial geoengineering field test cancelled

News

Tyrannosaur auctioned despite protests from Mongolia

News

Number of asteroids that pose risk to Earth is doubled

News

US baby boomers urged to get tested for hepatitis C

News

60 Seconds

News

Greek crisis: How to prevent a humanitarian disaster

News

Greek crisis: What the government should spend on

News

Greek crisis: Losing Greece won't save euro network

News

Physics

A dirty twist on beating the prisoner's dilemma

News

Health

Weight-loss surgery reduces desire for alcohol

News

Life

Speedy pH changes detected in brain for first time

News

'Impossible' material would stretch when compressed

News

Buried microbes exist at limit between life and death

News

Health

Artificial immune system gives baby vaccines a booster

News

Mowing down seagrass meadows will cut loose carbon

News

RNA breakthrough transforms idea of gene control

News

Earliest member of giant panda family found in Spain

News

Plutonium signature captured after 50 years of trying

News

Virtual reality provides relief from soldiers' trauma

News

Dino dolphins suffered from the bends

News

When you eat trumps what you eat in staying healthy

News

Technology

Face-reading software to judge the mood of the masses

News

Technology

Mind-reading robot teachers keep students focused

News

Technology

Shape-shifting wings make stealthy Batbot more agile

News

Technology

Power from cellphone towers keeps vaccines cool

News

Technology

Over-55s pick passwords twice as secure as teenagers'

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.

The wider implications of a Greek eurozone exit

Read more: " Greece in crisis: Saving a nation " THE human cost of Greece's predicament is becoming clear. As the world waits to see if its fractious leaders can secure the country's future, its citizens are finding it difficult to secure basic healthcare (see " Greek crisis: How to prevent a humanitarian disaster "). …

Opinion

Technology

Let the creative juices flow through social networks

Opinion

Earth

Nuclear transmutation is a cool idea for a hot problem

Opinion

Earth

Squaring the genetically modified crop circle

Opinion

Earth

Why we should care about our nitrogen footprint

Opinion

Life

What insect societies tell us about cells

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.

First look at the face of a woman dead for 2000 years

IMAGINE how Egyptologists must struggle with temptation. Say you are a young archaeologist and you discover an intact mummy. You must yearn to unwrap it, to see what was buried with the body, to learn about who this person was. For most Egyptologists of the golden era of discovery in the 19th and early 20th …

Regulars

Features

The argumentative ape: Why we're wired to persuade

Life

The argumentative ape: Why we're wired to persuade

We're all guilty of flawed thinking because our brains evolved to win others round to our point of view – whether or not our reasoning is logical

Features

Technology

Genius networks: Link to a more creative social circle

Features

Earth

Nuclear alchemy: Thorium promises power from waste

Features

Life

Men and women: Different brains, same aims

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.

CultureLab's 2012 guide to summer festivals

IT IS that time of year again, when people in the northern hemisphere dig out their tents and take to the festival fields. As usual the music line-ups look amazing, but what about the science? Things kick off in the UK with the Isle of Wight Festival (21-24 June), where the times between sets, including …

CultureLab

The sea change needed to protect the oceans

CultureLab

Digital danger: Is our online activity damaging us?

CultureLab

Why you really should have heard of ambergris

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 1699

Double time I woke up one morning last summer near the time of the solstice, and noticed that the clock in the darkened bedroom indicated a time either between 3.40 and 3.45am or between 8.15 and 8.20am – I couldn't tell which. When I mentioned this to my eccentric uncle, he produced a defunct clock, …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Luck of the Irish lottery

Feedback: Luck of the Irish lottery

Lottery of the fake lotteries WHOOPS! Feedback was momentarily taken in by the website irishlotto.net , which promises that "to improve your chances of winning the Irish lottery we have compiled a STATS section based on previous draws". That prompted reader Terry Devlin to ask whether the Irish Lottery had "discovered some previously unknown aspect …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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