Subscribe now

This week's magazine

29 March 2014

Issue 2962

New Scientist issue 2962 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

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

Medical experiments need consent – even in emergency

Opinion
Quantum death: How the cosmic speed limit got frozen

Physics

Quantum death: How the cosmic speed limit got frozen

Features
Stuff: Humans as hunters and mega-gatherers

Life

Stuff: Humans as hunters and mega-gatherers

Features
Stuff: The bare necessities, then and now

Life

Stuff: The bare necessities, then and now

Features
Stuff: The psychological power of possessions

Life

Stuff: The psychological power of possessions

Features
Stuff: Goodbye to the disposable age

Earth

Stuff: Goodbye to the disposable age

Features
The dream maker: My app shaped their slumbers

Life

The dream maker: My app shaped their slumbers

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

Déjà vu all over again for stem cell research

Stem cell research is caught up in controversy once more, but it is too early for gloom about this promising field

Opinion

Health

Medical experiments need consent – even in emergency

Opinion

News

Smelly cuckoos protect hosts' chicks from predators

Life

Smelly cuckoos protect hosts' chicks from predators

Smells of trouble Cuckoos have a bad reputation as home-wreckers, taking over the nests of other birds and killing their chicks . But one species benefits its hosts by producing a smelly fluid that repels predators. "Cuckoos are not always the villains we think they are," says Ros Gloag of the University of Sydney, who …

News

Life

Expert nose: we can sniff out over a trillion smells

News

Earth

Less gloopy oceans will slow climate change

News

Technology

Rise of robot reporters: when software writes the news

News

Life

Even low levels of stress could cause infertility

News

Space

Europe's home-grown space shuttle gears up for launch

News

Earth

Colorado River delta revived by historic water release

News

Technology

Data not debris shows Malaysia plane crashed into sea

News

Space

Record-breaking atom laser to hunt quantum gravity

News

Earth

Exxon to disclose extent of its carbon asset exposure

News

Earth

Mudslides could be predicted with acoustic sensors

News

Space

Space-time ripples hint at physics beyond the big bang

News

Map of how DNA controls cells may boost gene therapies

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Tree of bird life could solve Noah's Ark problem

News

Life

Ancient 'shrimp' was the blue whale of the Cambrian

News

Even lifeless exoplanets can have oxygen-rich air

News

Life

Dolphin whistle instantly translated by computer

News

Technology

Pull arsenic from drinking water and convert to bricks

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Life

Children benefit from the right sort of screen time

News

Space

Asteroid surprises with set of shiny Saturn-like rings

News

Space

New dwarf planet hints at giant world far beyond Pluto

News

Technology

Robot can wear your friend's face and guess your mood

News

Life

Stem cell scientists reveal 'unethical' work pressures

News

Health

Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death

News

Opinion

Is Exxon Valdez oil still a threat 25 years on?

Earth

Is Exxon Valdez oil still a threat 25 years on?

Oil from the Exxon Valdez spill lingers, as do disputes about its current impact on wildlife. An ecologist asks what a quarter century of research can tell us

Opinion

Earth

Stop Nicaragua's canal and save thousands of species

Opinion

Life

I'm infiltrating the walled cities where bacteria hide

Opinion

Aperture

Colours of time smeared in mountain-sized tectonic rip

Earth

Colours of time smeared in mountain-sized tectonic rip

(Image: Landsat/USGS/NASA) WHAT a striking display of the greatest powers on Earth: layers of rock, stacked over millions of years, ripped apart by tectonic forces . This satellite image is of the Piqiang fault in north-western China. The horizontal stripes are geological layers that have been scrunched up and pushed to the surface by the …

Regulars

Features

Quantum death: How the cosmic speed limit got frozen

Physics

Quantum death: How the cosmic speed limit got frozen

Zombie universe (Image: Edward Kinsella) Light speed is no limit in the quantum world – so why can't we exploit that freedom? Perhaps because we're living in the dead husk of a richer cosmos AS ENDINGS go, it is a bit of an anticlimax. As the universe enters old age, its stars burn out. Slowly, …

Features

Life

Stuff: Humans as hunters and mega-gatherers

Features

Life

Stuff: The bare necessities, then and now

Features

Life

Stuff: The psychological power of possessions

Features

Earth

Stuff: Goodbye to the disposable age

Features

Life

The dream maker: My app shaped their slumbers

Features

Culturelab

How climate pain is being spun into corporate gain

Earth

How climate pain is being spun into corporate gain

As the Arctic melts, the Russians are eyeing new shipping routes (Image: Jan Vermeer/ Foto Natura/Minden Pictures) The wolves of Wall Street have got climate change, but at a terrifying cost, reveals Windfall: The booming business of global warming by McKenzie Funk MY BOOKSHELVES contain several metres of books on climate change. This addition makes …

CultureLab

Health

Catching cancer: The riveting quest for a killer virus

CultureLab

Earth

Loving the alien: A defence of non-native species

CultureLab

More

Rewards help institutions focus on gender inequality

Rewards help institutions focus on gender inequality

Offering funding only to research institutes that tackle gender inequality is the latest idea to level the playing field for women in science. Is it working?

Careers

Regulars

Feedback: Stuff in its place

Feedback: Stuff in its place

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Stuff in its place RECYCLING raises interesting psychological issues. Feedback recalls the London Borough of Tower Hamlets some years ago deciding to issue households with one bag for all recyclable waste – so we no longer had to sort out …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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