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This week's magazine

2 February 2013

Issue 2902

New Scientist issue 2902 cover
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Editor's picks

Illustration of woman in a white gown floating above a bed

Humans

Sleep and dreaming: Where do our minds go at night?

Features
A person asleep in bed and enclosed in a big bubble

Technology

Sleep and dreaming: Slumber at the flick of a switch

Features
Sleep and dreaming: Why can't we stay awake 24/7?

Life

Sleep and dreaming: Why can't we stay awake 24/7?

Features
Engineering light: Pull an image from nowhere

Technology

Engineering light: Pull an image from nowhere

Features
Photosynthesis: Earth's life support system

Photosynthesis: Earth's life support system

Features
Photosynthesis: Shaping the planet

Earth

Photosynthesis: Shaping the planet

Features
Photosynthesis: Frontiers

Photosynthesis: Frontiers

Features
Photosynthesis: The emergence of quantum biology

Photosynthesis: The emergence of quantum biology

Features

Table of contents

News

Shrinking proton puzzle persists in new measurement

Physics

Shrinking proton puzzle persists in new measurement

This ring cyclotron at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, accelerates protons to about 80 per cent of the speed of light. The magnets are coloured turquoise and the four acceleration cavities dark grey A puzzle at the heart of the atom refuses to go away. The most precise measurement yet of the proton's …

News

Space

Astrophile: Split personality tarnishes pulsars' rep

News

Life

Zoologger: Supercool squirrels go into the deep freeze

News

Life

Stress can affect future generations' genes

News

Life

Dung beetles navigate using the Milky Way

News

Technology

Human brain model and graphene win science's X Factor

News

Earth

Davos: Persuading big business to act on climate change

News

Retreating rebels burn Timbuktu's science manuscripts

News

Physics

First real time-travel movies are loopers

News

Earth

Climate change blamed for Australia's extreme weather

News

Health

Drug reduces enlarged prostate with few side effects

News

Space

Earth and others lose status as Goldilocks worlds

News

Technology

The right to fight: women at war

News

Life

US medical research chimps to retire to sanctuaries

News

Environment

Iran launches monkey into space

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

How Obama will deliver his climate promise

News

Earth

Keep rainforests – they drive the planet's winds

News

Life

Two worms, same brains – but one eats the other

News

Physics

Archimedes's favourite insight printed in 3D

News

Life

Think that massage feels good? Try adding drugs

News

Technology

Social whodunnit competition launches in India

News

Life

Mind-meld brain power is best for steering spaceships

News

Technology

Data waves keep your wearable tech in tune

News

Technology

Muscle-zapper forces gamers' own hands against them

News

Technology

Sneaky ninja robot silently stalks its prey

News

Physics

Solved? 80-year-old puzzle of the infinite sphere

News

Opinion

David Attenborough

Life

David Attenborough: Animals are a source of infinite fascination

What is your secret? It's amazing that your passion is still there after 60 years in TV. It's amazing, frankly, that I'm vertical. Well, you could be forgiven for saying, I've done my bit, and now I want a quiet life. Yes. I want to go and sit and dribble in a corner. So… what …

Opinion

Earth

Faith leaders belong at the forefront of conservation

Opinion

Challenge unscientific thinking, whatever its source

Opinion

Life

How should we use the keys to sleep?

Opinion

Timbuktu's precious scientific texts must be saved

Opinion

Lefty nonsense: When progressives wage war on reason

Opinion

Analysis

Texas mega-battery aims to green up the grid

Earth

Texas mega-battery aims to green up the grid

Bridging the energy gap IN A remote corner of west Texas, in the shadow of a sprawling wind farm, one of the world's largest batteries was switched on last week. Deep in oil country, the battery is at the vanguard of efforts to help renewable energy sources realise their potential and, ultimately, oust fossil fuels …

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.

Beating heart of a quantum time machine exposed

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science BEHOLD, the beating heart of a time machine! Or "clock", as most people call them, but this one is nothing like your grandfather's. This super-accurate timekeeper is an optical atomic clock built …

Regulars

Features

Illustration of woman in a white gown floating above a bed

Humans

Sleep and dreaming: Where do our minds go at night?

We are beginning to understand how our brains shape our dreams, and why they contain such an eerie mixture of the familiar and the bizarre

Features

Technology

Sleep and dreaming: Slumber at the flick of a switch

Features

Life

Sleep and dreaming: Why can't we stay awake 24/7?

Features

Technology

Engineering light: Pull an image from nowhere

Features

Photosynthesis: Earth's life support system

Features

Earth

Photosynthesis: Shaping the planet

Features

Photosynthesis: Frontiers

Features

Photosynthesis: The emergence of quantum biology

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.

A life spent fighting fair about the roots of violence

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

CultureLab

Tour of the body hardly gets under the skin

CultureLab

Earth

Climate change may get us into hot political waters

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 1734

Friendly factors Six friends, all keen mathematicians, met at a party. Each letter in their names – NED, PAT, ROD, RON, TIM and TOM – was replaced by a digit, with different digits used for different letters. In this way each of their names became a three-figure number. Whenever two of the friends were in …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Ingredient-free aphrodisiac

Feedback: Ingredient-free aphrodisiac

Ingredient-free aphrodisiac REMEMBER how sex used to be? Then why not try Sublingual Human Growth Hormone to bring back the thrill? Well, there are several reasons. Colin Smythe asks whether we can see anything that has scientific backing in the claims made for "sHGH" at primehealthdirect.com – claims such as: "Both men and women have …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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