Subscribe now

This week's magazine

9 June 2012

Issue 2868

New Scientist issue 2868 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
Subscribe
Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

Editor's picks

Lucky you! Accidents of evolution that made us human

Humans

Lucky you! Accidents of evolution that made us human

Features
Lucky accidents of human evolution: Jaw dropper

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Jaw dropper

Features
Lucky accidents of human evolution: Brain gain

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Brain gain

Features
Lucky accidents of human evolution: Energy upgrade

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Energy upgrade

Features
Lucky accidents of human evolution: Gift of the gab

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Gift of the gab

Features
Lucky accidents of human evolution: Helping hand

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Helping hand

Features
Lucky accidents of human evolution: Switch to starch

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Switch to starch

Features
Wireless medicine: Turn on, tune in, control life

Life

Wireless medicine: Turn on, tune in, control life

Features
Touch and go: Fondling the digital world

Technology

Touch and go: Fondling the digital world

Features

Table of contents

News

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.

Life

Autism study strengthens idea that we read God's mind

People with autism appear less likely to believe in God – a discovery that has strengthened theories that religious belief relies on being able to imagine what God is thinking, a capacity known as "mentalising". One of the hallmarks of autism is an impaired ability to infer and respond to what other people are thinking …

News

Life

Zoologger: Strange reptiles saw heads off seabirds

News

Technology

Rehab robot helps paralysed rats walk again

News

Life

Chickadees get smarter as they move up mountains

News

Earth

New concerns over safety of arsenic in drinking water

News

Earth

Geoengineering would turn blue skies whiter

News

Health

'Western cancers' spreading to developing world

News

Earth

Vast cosmic event leaves record in ancient trees

News

Life

Goo-goo-gorillas have their own kind of baby talk

News

Space

Watching the transit of Venus… from Saturn

News

Earth

Carbon dioxide levels reach a new milestone

News

Obama 'gave full backing to Stuxnet attack on Iran'

News

Health

World's first Parkinson's vaccine is trialled

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

Hawking's 'Escher-verse' could be theory of everything

News

Life

Zen meditators tap in to subliminal messages

News

Life

Bionic cells can do basic arithmetic

News

Space

Saturn moon spouts plasma unlike any seen before

News

Health

Watching surgeons expand a baby's skull

News

Life

Plants may be able to 'hear' others

News

Space

Cosmic climate change may have stunted black holes

News

Life

Menstrual huts protect Dogon men from cuckoldry

News

Technology

The AI game that knows you better than anyone

News

Technology

Face recognition finds lost pilgrims in Mecca

News

Technology

Crowd IQ is proof that the hivemind is usually best

News

Technology

Why we may never know who created Flame virus

News

Technology

Go for a jog with a helicopter drone

News

Earth

Japan to renege on carbon emissions cuts

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.

Technology

The Millennium prizewinner who gave Linux to the world

This year's Millennium Technology Prize, the "Nobel" of the technology world, has for the first time been shared between the two nominees. Stem-cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka and Linus Torvalds , creator of the Linux operating system, will each receive €600,000. Linux underlies Google, Facebook and Amazon, but unlike commercial rivals Windows and Mac OS, Linux …

Opinion

Health

The right amount of alcohol is not always less

Opinion

Technology

Familiarity shouldn't block creativity in haptics

Opinion

Life

Let's get real on synthetic biology

Opinion

Mind

Criminalising drugs is harming medical research

Opinion

Analysis

Pregnancy blood test can identify Down's syndrome

Health

Pregnancy blood test can identify Down's syndrome

Blood tests for fetal syndromes remove the risk of miscarriage TESTING whether a fetus has Down's syndrome is getting easier – and less risky. Several companies, all based in California, are launching tests that work on a pregnant woman's blood, rather than requiring an invasive procedure. The tests are already proving controversial, with opponents of …

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.

Up close to a venomous fire urchin

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science

Regulars

Features

Lucky you! Accidents of evolution that made us human

Humans

Lucky you! Accidents of evolution that made us human

Evolution is a game of chance. New Scientist uncovers six of the winning mutations that helped humans hit the jackpot

Features

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Jaw dropper

Features

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Brain gain

Features

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Energy upgrade

Features

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Gift of the gab

Features

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Helping hand

Features

Humans

Lucky accidents of human evolution: Switch to starch

Features

Life

Wireless medicine: Turn on, tune in, control life

Features

Technology

Touch and go: Fondling the digital world

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.

Evolving on many levels

See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog

CultureLab

Hormone hangovers spell financial doom

CultureLab

Puff pieces: Sculptures made of thin air

CultureLab

A palaeontologist's Alaskan adventure

CultureLab

Accessing our digital legacy

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 1701

Lit up The display on my calculator shows 9876543210. As usual, up to seven illuminated strips are used to display each digit – the 8 using all seven, for example. There is just one special 10-figure number with the property that it is a perfect power of the total number of illuminated strips that it …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Not-so-warm invitations

Feedback: Not-so-warm invitations

There wasn't an old conference that lived in a shoe INVITATIONS to attend scientific conferences are frequent arrivals in our journalists' inboxes. But those that offer to pay expenses for speakers whose papers are accepted, with registration "free of charge for participants from developing countries", are not. So a colleague's eyebrows were elevated by the …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop