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This week's magazine

14 September 2013

Issue 2934

New Scientist issue 2934 cover
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Editor's picks

Spot of bother: have we been getting solar activity wrong?

Space

Spot of bother: have we been getting solar activity wrong?

Features
Future law: Can you be slandered by a robot?

Technology

Future law: Can you be slandered by a robot?

Features
More than a feline: the true nature of cats

Life

More than a feline: the true nature of cats

Features
The matrix: the secret to superhealing regeneration

Life

The matrix: the secret to superhealing regeneration

Features

Table of contents

News

Samsung launch kickstarts the smartwatch boom

Technology

Samsung launch kickstarts the smartwatch boom

The Galaxy Gear is here Cellphones liberated many of us from the need to wear a wristwatch – they could tell you the time and let you check your friend's Facebook status. But now the watch is poised to make an unexpected comeback in the shape of "smartwatches", which let you check your messages and …

News

Space

Solar system caught in an interstellar tempest

News

Technology

Quantum chip connected to internet is yours to command

News

Earth

World's biggest volcano was born in the dinosaur age

News

Health

E-cigarettes help you quit as well as nicotine patches

News

Technology

How NSA weakens encryption to access internet traffic

News

Life

Old memories recombine to give a taste of the unknown

News

Life

Men with smaller testicles make better dads

News

Earth

Are there ecological merits to trawling the seabed?

News

Earth

Australia rips up climate-change policies

News

Earth

Tropical storms stir up trouble for coral reefs

News

Life

Cell scaffolding found in odd California meteorite

News

Life

A quarter of men in some parts of Asia admit to rape

News

Technology

Nanotube-coated spider silk can sense your heartbeat

News

Physics

Strength of gravity shifts – and this time it's serious

News

Earth

UK fracking could come out carbon neutral

News

Space

60 Seconds

News

Technology

Coping with the lasting costs of the Syrian war

News

Space

Supergoop universe offers a window into glassy physics

News

Life

Heart of glass could be key to banking organs

News

Space

Earth's extreme life holds hints to Martian past

News

Life

Crime-scene DNA extracted from single hair

News

Life

Mosquitofish are efficient lovers

News

Technology

Tough robo-challenge casts robots as rescuers

News

Technology

Automatic style spotter can spot your next book

News

Technology

Gamers unleash swarms of nanoparticles on tumours

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Technology

The foreign language copycat catcher

News

Earth

Grey wolf's future hinges on taxonomic row

News

Life

New UK banknotes could provide cosy home for bugs

News

Opinion

*Me* medicine could undermine public health measures

Health

*Me* medicine could undermine public health measures

The growth of personalised medicine threatens the communal approach that has brought our biggest health gains

Opinion

Space

Low-budget way to send your stuff into space

Opinion

Selling sensation: the new marketing territory

Opinion

Healing Syrian refugees' anguish

Opinion

Life

Deep trawling: no plaice for complacency

Opinion

What makes the purrfect pet?

Opinion

Aperture

Is this the most extraordinary human brain ever seen?

Life

Is this the most extraordinary human brain ever seen?

(Image: Adam Voorhes ) ONCE you know what it is, this apparently innocuous picture of a blob assumes a terrible gravity. It is an adult human brain that is entirely smooth – free of the ridges and folds so characteristic of our species' most complex organ. We can only imagine what life was like for …

Regulars

Features

Spot of bother: have we been getting solar activity wrong?

Space

Spot of bother: have we been getting solar activity wrong?

For 400 years sunspot numbers have told us what the sun is up to. But wrinkles in the record have left solar scientists scratching their heads, until now

Features

Technology

Future law: Can you be slandered by a robot?

Features

Life

More than a feline: the true nature of cats

Features

Life

The matrix: the secret to superhealing regeneration

Features

Culturelab

The genes that make you a true individual

Life

The genes that make you a true individual

Life partners: a woman waits to donate a kidney to her husband (Image: Tino Soriano/NGS) Your compatibility genes make you unique as well as affecting all parts of your life, from your health to your choice in partner, finds Mark Viney I AM me, and thou art thee. We are all individuals, and our individuality …

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 1766

Triangular sums I have listed in random order five positive integers, four of two digits and one of one digit. They use each of the digits 1 to 9. None of the two-digit integers has any factor greater than 1 in common with any other of the two-digit integers. The first of the integers in …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Animating Shakespeare

Feedback: Animating Shakespeare

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Animating Shakespeare MICROSOFT co-founder Bill Gates, his former chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold and eight of their cohorts have applied for a patent on a way to automatically generate video from text. They say that by bringing the text to …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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