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This week's magazine

26 January 2013

Issue 2901

New Scientist issue 2901 cover
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Editor's picks

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Earth

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Features
The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Earth

The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Features
Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

Space

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

Features
Drone school: Tough lessons for rookie remote pilots

Life

Drone school: Tough lessons for rookie remote pilots

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.

Health

Flu checks its biological clock to evade detection

Flu is an insidious virus. It penetrates your cells, replicates and escapes to infect other cells before your immune system even knows that it is there. Now we know how it times things so well. Like any good thief, flu uses a clock so it can do its dirty work and abscond before it's caught. …

News

Life

Matching names to genes: the end of genetic privacy?

News

Life

Zoologger: The first solar-powered vertebrate

News

Health

Cognitive impairment in premature babies not permanent

News

Life

Moth navigation probed to improve micro-drone flight

News

Space

Earth may be crashing through dark matter walls

News

Earth

Global mercury treaty will take decades to work

News

Earth

Barack Obama promises US action on climate

News

Life

Did Mars hide life in its watery pockets?

News

Twitter reveals how Higgs gossip reached fever pitch

News

Life

Canada's new banknotes show wrong maple leaf

News

Earth

Environmental crises may threaten pensions

News

NASA planet-hunter is injured and resting

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Obama to scientists: Tell us how to calm gun violence

News

Life

Your molar roots are leftovers from Homo erectus

News

Earth

Greek economic crisis has cleared the air

News

Life

Quadruple helix DNA discovered in human cells

News

Space

Dwarf planet Eris may reveal quantum gravity

News

Earth

Get cirrus in the fight against climate change

News

Life

Lingering kiss: DNA persists in the mouth after smooch

News

Life

To spot a fit partridge, check its fractal necklace

News

Space

Weird high-energy flare made by spitting black hole

News

Life

First farmers' trash put wolves in the doghouse

News

Technology

Ford's open-source kit brings era of smart car apps

News

Technology

Touch-sensitive video-screen floor is in step with you

News

Technology

Bandwidth-sharing app brings connectivity to all

News

Technology

Body armour to scale up by mimicking flexible fish

News

Space

Space-miners to crush asteroids and 3D print satellites

News

Opinion

Is Obama about to blow his climate credentials?

Earth

Is Obama about to blow his climate credentials?

The US president could be poised to approve the doubling of imports of tar sands oil, one of the filthiest fuels on Earth

Opinion

Technology

A shot at the truth about gun violence

Opinion

Life

DNA privacy: don't flatter yourself

Opinion

Health

Scarred for life? The biology of childhood hardship

Opinion

'If the Royal Institution is sold, that's the end'

Opinion

Analysis

High-tech Dreamliner's wings clipped by battery trouble

Technology

High-tech Dreamliner's wings clipped by battery trouble

Grounded WHEN it went into service a little over a year ago, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was hailed as a miracle of cutting-edge innovation – the Chicago-based company used lithium-ion batteries, a carbon-fibre fuselage, and blazing fast computer networks to cut down on fuel consumption and provide passengers with a ride like no other. But following …

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.

Environment

Netted Costa Rican birds pay small price for art

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

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Earth

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Rust may be the scourge of electronics but it could help solar power run all night

Features

Earth

The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Features

Space

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

Features

Life

Drone school: Tough lessons for rookie remote pilots

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.

Stellar performances finally gain the limelight

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

CultureLab

Moulding fungal furniture the (un)natural way

CultureLab

The most beautiful explanations

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 1733

Astronomer royal I was talking to my granddaughter about the solar system and how planets and comets move in ellipses with the sun at one focus. I told her how you could draw an ellipse by sticking two pins in a sheet of paper both equidistant from and in line with the central point, placing …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Read this and you're caught

Feedback: Read this and you're caught

Read this and you're caught CONTRACTS, in the law of countries such as England, Wales and Australia, exist only where the parties concerned exhibit the intention to make an agreement, where there is an offer of something of value, and where there is acceptance. Weird and wonderful are some companies' attempts to bind online purchasers …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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