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This week's magazine

1 March 2014

Issue 2958

New Scientist issue 2958 cover
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Editor's picks

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.

Technology

Society turns to steampunk to fix its climate woes

Opinion
Sharp thinking: How shaping tools built our brains

Life

Sharp thinking: How shaping tools built our brains

Features
Rewilding: Bring in the big beasts to fix ecosystems

Earth

Rewilding: Bring in the big beasts to fix ecosystems

Features
Curry cure: Chillies are the hot new thing in medicine

Health

Curry cure: Chillies are the hot new thing in medicine

Features
20,000 megawatts under the sea: Oceanic steam engines

Earth

20,000 megawatts under the sea: Oceanic steam engines

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

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

How can you ensure that your life is worth living?

Dramatic advances in communication with people in a minimally conscious state have provoked questions central to our ideas about what makes life worth living

Opinion

Earth

When is an artificial ecosystem no longer a fake?

Opinion

Technology

Society turns to steampunk to fix its climate woes

Opinion

News

Incoming 'Moby Dick' asteroid goes missing near Earth

Space

Incoming 'Moby Dick' asteroid goes missing near Earth

A whale of an asteroid has gone missing. The 270-metre space rock known as 2000 EM26 was slated to skim past Earth early on 18 February, coming within 3.4 million kilometres of our planet. But when a robotic telescope service trained its eye on the predicted position, the asteroid was nowhere to be found. Astronomers …

News

Earth

Warmer world may wreak havoc with the Atlantic

News

Life

Dog brains respond to calls just like human brains

News

Technology

ButtonMasher: 80,000 spar to control same Pokémon game

News

Health

New cache of fresh neurons found in human brains

News

Life

Zoologger: Sabre-toothed frog is an evolutionary loner

News

Space

Fresh hint of dark matter seen in neutrino search

News

Earth

UK's carbon plans make up for oil and gas splurge

News

Technology

Electric heart sock could kick out pacemakers

News

Earth

European Commission sues UK over polluted air

News

Earth

Cost of natural disasters doubles in China

News

60 Seconds

News

Technology

Brain zap rouses people from years of vegetative state

News

Life

Healing by faeces: Rise of the DIY gut-bug swap

News

Life

Pancreatic cancer's killer trick offers treatment hope

News

Space

India unveils its first home-grown astronaut capsule

News

Physics

Prime number enigma could be solved by simple networks

News

Life

Origin of organs: Thank viruses for your skin and bone

News

Mystery Voynich manuscript gets preliminary alphabet

News

Physics

Quantum electric dewdrops produced for first time

News

Technology

Location-aware Wi-Fi lets fans be part of the show

News

Technology

Solar DNA tests detect cancer without electricity

News

Life

Sensor backpacks for oysters say when they are happy

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Health

Virus that caused flu pandemic dominates again

News

Technology

Virtual currency 'Riecoin' tackles prime number enigma

News

Technology

Phone's Wi-Fi hotspot acts as SOS beacon in disasters

News

Health

Greek austerity tragedy shows where not to make cuts

News

Life

Racial categories aren't hardwired in our minds

News

Opinion

The world needs to talk about child euthanasia

Health

The world needs to talk about child euthanasia

Belgium has become the first nation to legalise euthanasia for children of any age. Other countries need to face the issue too

Opinion

Health

'My hospital helps women raped in east Congo's wars'

Opinion

Life

I'm breeding biodegradable batteries from viruses

Opinion

Aperture

If the giant tusks don't get you, the bad breath will

Life

If the giant tusks don't get you, the bad breath will

(Image: Paul Nicklen/National Geographic Creative) BEFORE J. R. R. Tolkien was dreaming up hobbits and constructing languages for elves to speak, he worked at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he was assigned words beginning with W. "Walrus", Tolkien proposed, came from the Old Norse hrossvalr , meaning "horse-whale". This is unlikely to be foremost in …

Regulars

Features

Sharp thinking: How shaping tools built our brains

Life

Sharp thinking: How shaping tools built our brains

Video: Tool making gives insight into early human mind How did we become the smartest creatures on Earth? The story of our ancestors' mental leaps can be found in stones – a modern-day flint-knapper is our guide SPARKS fly as stone meets stone, and shards of rock ricochet off the furniture around me. Each strike …

Features

Earth

Rewilding: Bring in the big beasts to fix ecosystems

Features

Health

Curry cure: Chillies are the hot new thing in medicine

Features

Earth

20,000 megawatts under the sea: Oceanic steam engines

Features

Culturelab

Can these pop-sci self-help books make you smarter?

Life

Can these pop-sci self-help books make you smarter?

Use it or lose it? Some activities may increase general intelligence (Image: Erich Lessing/Magnum) Mind-reading, prediction and intelligence – these three books promise three superpowers. But do they make Kate Douglas a better person? SELF help. Now try to keep an open mind. This is the world's bestselling genre, with around 45,000 titles in print. …

CultureLab

Big bad ideas: What's worrying our greatest minds

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Amazing interplanetary future

Feedback: Amazing interplanetary future

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Amazing interplanetary future SUCCUMBING, as we expected, to temptation and seeking entertaining mis-predictions in New Scientist 's 1964 vision of The World in 1984 (25 January) , Feedback starts with the low-hanging fruit. In 1964, Wernher von Braun was Director …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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