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This week's magazine

22 February 2014

Issue 2957

New Scientist issue 2957 cover
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Editor's picks

Britons need to accept their new climate

Earth

Britons need to accept their new climate

Opinion
Healing spark: Hack body electricity to replace drugs

Health

Healing spark: Hack body electricity to replace drugs

Features
Do invertebrates feel pain?

Life

Do invertebrates feel pain?

Features
Cryptic river: The torrents that flow on the seabed

Earth

Cryptic river: The torrents that flow on the seabed

Features
Testicular time bomb: Older dads' mutant sperm

Health

Testicular time bomb: Older dads' mutant sperm

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Britons need to accept their new climate

Earth

Britons need to accept their new climate

The increasing likelihood of extreme weather events poses big challenges for the UK. Fortunately, there are some unexpected precedents

Opinion

News

China's Jade Rabbit moon rover showing signs of life

Space

China's Jade Rabbit moon rover showing signs of life

Is Yutu waking up after all? Reports of the moon bunny's death may be somewhat exaggerated. Despite earlier suggestions that China's lunar rover, Yutu – or Jade Rabbit – had been officially declared dead , Chinese state media now say that the rabbit has phoned home. It remains unclear, though, whether the rover is healthy …

News

Life

Zoologger: The hardest ant in the world

News

Health

Empires and slave-trading left their mark on our genes

News

Technology

Termite robots build castles with no human help

News

Life

Belgium legalises euthanasia for children of any age

News

Earth

World governments set out to slash wildlife crime

News

Health

Fishing rod reels brain tumour cells to their death

News

Earth

Melted magma could warn of brewing volcanic eruptions

News

Space

Baby universe rumbled with thunder of Higgs bubbles

News

Life

First animals may have lived with almost no oxygen

News

Physics

Wikipedia-size maths proof too big for humans to check

News

Health

Spit test could allow depression screening at school

News

Earth

Arctic thaw significantly worsens global warming risk

News

Earth

Disease-defying spuds exiled from Europe – again

News

Life

Acid-bath stem cell results called into question

News

Technology

Monkey brain waves control hand of paralysed pal

News

Space

Earth is prepared enough for the next asteroid strike

News

Life

Liquid-crystal bath puts live bacteria on display

News

Health

Blind mice see the light after simple drug therapy

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

UK must abandon or adapt in face of floods

News

Earth

Honeybee trade is hotbed for carrying disease into wild

News

Sloshing sea may make Neptune's moon Triton habitable

News

Space

Robots with human-like brains to take on Mars unaided

News

Technology

Cockpit for apps: Minority Report meets Google Glass

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Space

Interplanetary comms get easier with a nanotech boost

News

Space

First commercial moon delivery could be sports drink

News

Earth

Deep-sea mining projects land in hot water

News

Technology

NHS plans leave 'anonymous' medical data vulnerable

News

Earth

Health trauma of floods may last after waters subside

News

Health

Cannabis can kill without the influence of other drugs

News

Health

Travelling truck surgeons save lives in the Andes

News

Opinion

Stellar archaeologist: We excavated the purest star

Space

Stellar archaeologist: We excavated the purest star

Anna Frebel has discovered a star almost as old as the universe Astronomer Anna Frebel is part of a team that reported the discovery this week of a star that is almost as old as the universe – using techniques reminiscent of traditional archaeology. Lisa Grossman caught up with her at the Massachusetts Institute of …

Opinion

Earth

Will record floods finally shift UK climate debate?

Opinion

Life

Our blender brain: How mixing ideas made us human

Opinion

Aperture

Darkness at the end of Brazil's great water tunnel

Earth

Darkness at the end of Brazil's great water tunnel

(Image: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) WHEN complete, this tunnel – it is a tunnel carved by humans, not water – will be more than 4 kilometres long. The Cuncas II tunnel is part of an ambitious 477 kilometre network of tunnels and canals that is being built to provide north-eastern Brazil with water. The region has a …

Regulars

Features

Healing spark: Hack body electricity to replace drugs

Health

Healing spark: Hack body electricity to replace drugs

(Image: Angus Greig) We're learning to speak the electrical language of the body – and using it to develop treatments for diseases from arthritis to diabetes FOR Goran Ostovich*, just driving his delivery van was a daily agony. The painful swelling in his hands, wrists and elbows made it nearly impossible to grip and turn …

Features

Life

Do invertebrates feel pain?

Features

Earth

Cryptic river: The torrents that flow on the seabed

Features

Health

Testicular time bomb: Older dads' mutant sperm

Features

Culturelab

Britain's earliest humanity in epic exhibition

Life

Britain's earliest humanity in epic exhibition

This reconstruction of an early modern human depicts him with a painting tool in his lips Was this skull in Gough cave linked to cannibalism? A groundbreaking display at London's Natural History Museum reveals the humans that occupied Britain for the past million years – and tells their stories February is proving to be an …

CultureLab

Lego competition winners

CultureLab

Technology

The poetry of code and the code of poetry

CultureLab

More

Leagues ahead? The best way to judge universities

Leagues ahead? The best way to judge universities

A personalised tool to rank universities may be better than existing league tables

Careers

Alternative choice: Student life isn't just studying

Careers

Regulars

Feedback: All shall have pills

Feedback: All shall have pills

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more All shall have pills SOME time ago Feedback noticed posters plugging nutritional supplements, exhorting us to buy "his" and "her" pills from Vitabiotics, and shrugged. We started from a sceptical stance on the benefits of supplements, especially for the people …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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