Subscribe now

This week's magazine

19 October 2013

Issue 2939

New Scientist issue 2939 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

Hidden depths: Brain science is drowning in uncertainty

Life

Hidden depths: Brain science is drowning in uncertainty

Features
Past blast: The lost volcano that set off an ice age

Earth

Past blast: The lost volcano that set off an ice age

Features
Cosmic chemistry: Life's molecules are made in space

Life

Cosmic chemistry: Life's molecules are made in space

Features
Extreme rhubarb: The plant that grows a greenhouse

Earth

Extreme rhubarb: The plant that grows a greenhouse

Features

Table of contents

News

Planet Bling: solar system's giants host megadiamonds

Space

Planet Bling: solar system's giants host megadiamonds

It's raining diamonds Diamond rain, seas and even "diamondbergs" could be floating inside Jupiter and Saturn, according to new analysis of how carbon behaves at high temperatures and pressures. Neptune and Uranus may already play host to diamonds, so the latest results could mean all of the solar system's gas giants are littered with bling. …

News

Space

'Black glass' could be first comet chunk found on Earth

News

Life

Zoologger: Elephants understand what it means to point

News

Life

Hunter-gatherers got on fine with Europe's first farmers

News

Space

Zombie star caught feasting on a soggy asteroid

News

Health

Threatwatch: Disease may run amok while the CDC sleeps

News

Chemical weapons watchdog in surprise Nobel win

News

Technology

Quantum computing contender helps refine Google Glass

News

Health

New botox super-toxin has its details censored

News

Life

Monkey feels touch with prosthetic hand

News

Earth

Nine in 10 European city dwellers breathe bad air

News

Earth

Worm turns from zero to climate change hero

News

US government shutdown: Doing away with the dollar

News

Health

Resistant cancers may hijack fetus's detox switch

News

Health

Ketamine-like drug lifts depression without the trip

News

Life

Watch specialised number neurons in action

News

Physics

Light can break Newton's third law – by cheating

News

Environment

60 Seconds

News

Earth

How UK's first nuclear reactor for 25 years will work

News

Life

Back from the dead: Reversing walking corpse syndrome

News

Space

Earth's super-siblings grew up very differently

News

Earth

For instant climate change, just add one large comet

News

Earth

Diving in Bermuda to find the coral reef survivors

News

Technology

Solar-powered cars streak across Australia

News

Life

Virtual role-playing teaches kids the harm of bullying

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Technology

Augmented reality system makes cars see-through

News

Health

Badly run trials behind Indian drug testing freeze

News

Opinion

Menthol cigarettes: Stub out these seductive smokes

Health

Menthol cigarettes: Stub out these seductive smokes

Menthol cigarettes make it easier to start smoking and harder to quit. It’s time to stub them out for good

Opinion

Earth

Don't demonise palm oil to save orang-utans

Opinion

Life

How neuroscience can make you kinder

Opinion

Life

Neuroscience wrongs will make a right

Opinion

Earth

Don't let nuclear renaissance bury carbon capture

Opinion

Analysis

Free broadband via gaps in spectrum gets biggest trial

Technology

Free broadband via gaps in spectrum gets biggest trial

The first mass trials of white-space wireless technology in Europe are giving the much-hyped idea a chance of breaking out into the real world

News

Aperture

Labyrinthine M. C. Escher stairs line vast Indian well

Earth

Labyrinthine M. C. Escher stairs line vast Indian well

(Image: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London) ESCHER might have gawped. But this labyrinthine nest of stairs is no impossible construction. Between AD 600 and 1850, more than 3000 step wells were dug, by hand, in the Indian provinces of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Many of them had intricate staircase designs, peppered with shrines and balconies on …

Regulars

Features

Hidden depths: Brain science is drowning in uncertainty

Life

Hidden depths: Brain science is drowning in uncertainty

The edifice of research being built with brain scans is flawed. It’s time to rethink the approach to build a more complete understanding of the mind

Features

Earth

Past blast: The lost volcano that set off an ice age

Features

Life

Cosmic chemistry: Life's molecules are made in space

Features

Earth

Extreme rhubarb: The plant that grows a greenhouse

Features

Culturelab

Locating art in the brain of the beholder

Life

Locating art in the brain of the beholder

(Image: Juan Manuel Castro Prieto/Agence VU/Camerapress) New books by Anjan Chatterjee and Arthur Shimamura tackle neuroaesthetics, the search for links between brain activity and preferences for art WHO is your favourite artist? You may, like me, find the question difficult to answer. My preferences vary, and I like different artists for different reasons: Paul Klee, …

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 1771

Squares either way Whether you write dates in the order day.month.year or month.day.year (in each case with two digits for each element), 04.04.01 represents 4 April 2001, and it is a square date because 40401 is the square of 201. In addition to 4 April 2001, there is one other date in this century that …

Regulars

Earth

Triplet of storms means heavy weather for Asia

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Drink up your oxygen

Feedback: Drink up your oxygen

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Drink up your oxygen ON A trip to a science conference in Bulgaria, Jasmine Parkinson came across a bottled drink in a service station. It was raspberry flavoured mineral water by Adelholzener. Large letters on the bottle claimed that it …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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