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This week's magazine

19 April 2014

Issue 2965

New Scientist issue 2965 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.

Quick off the market: what's fair in flash trading?

Opinion
No more primal soup: Creating life without water

Earth

No more primal soup: Creating life without water

Features
Mystery physics: What does the M in M-theory mean?

Physics

Mystery physics: What does the M in M-theory mean?

Features
Heritage plaque: Our ancestors' health read from teeth

Life

Heritage plaque: Our ancestors' health read from teeth

Features
Shakespeare: Did radical astronomy inspire <i>Hamlet</i>?

Space

Shakespeare: Did radical astronomy inspire Hamlet?

Features
Shakespeare: The godfather of modern medicine

Health

Shakespeare: The godfather of modern medicine

Features
Shakespeare: Unleashing a tempest in the brain

Life

Shakespeare: Unleashing a tempest in the brain

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.

Contemplating the power of war to end all wars

The threat of mutually assured destruction, military or economic, promotes peace in many places. If war has ultimately forged a safer world, what’s next?

Opinion

We can't be too fussy when it comes to green energy

Opinion

Quick off the market: what's fair in flash trading?

Opinion

News

Zoologger: Cannibal tadpoles eat the competition

Life

Zoologger: Cannibal tadpoles eat the competition

Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world

News

Space

NASA 'flying saucer' for Mars to land in Hawaii

News

Life

Flies steer like mini-helicopters to avoid attackers

News

Technology

Banish jet lag with a handy mathematical scheduler

News

Technology

LHC spots particle that may be new form of matter

News

Technology

Why a hacker got paid for finding the Heartbleed bug

News

Life

Grand Canyon struggles to repel invading beefalo

News

Health

Exclusive: My lab-grown vagina and hopes for a family

News

Life

Are RNA fragments making gene tweaks in descendants?

News

Health

Genetic risk of Alzheimer's has gender bias

News

Technology

Submarine drone dives into hunt for missing MH370 jet

News

Technology

Syria chemical weapons deadline needs fair seas

News

Space

SpaceX to test landing legs for future reusable rocket

News

Stem cells debacle: Obokata admits enhancing images

News

60 Seconds

News

Atomic time lord to battle sneaky high-speed trades

News

Quantum phone booth lets you encrypt your calls

News

Flesh-eating bacterium is a child of the 80s

News

Drama therapy frees imaginations of kids with autism

News

Technology

When the internet dies, meet the meshnet that survives

News

Technology

Digital mirror reveals what lies under your skin

News

Technology

Blue skies on tap, whenever you need them

News

Technology

Helmet to offer tongue-in-cheek gadget control

News

Opinion

What's war good for? It's made a more peaceful world

Life

What's war good for? It's made a more peaceful world

For all the horror and brutality of battle, war has a surprising upside – it helps create larger and safer societies, argues a leading historian

Opinion

Unclaimed bodies are anatomy's shameful inheritance

Opinion

Let me show you how to make your own glowing plant

Opinion

Analysis

Giant solar farm uses molten salt to keep power coming

Technology

Giant solar farm uses molten salt to keep power coming

Renewable energy could help underpin the grid now that the world’s biggest concentrated solar storage plant is up and running in Arizona

News

Health

Is stockpiling pandemic flu drugs shrewd or misguided?

News

Aperture

Stealthy surfaces make for psychedelic laser scanning

Stealthy surfaces make for psychedelic laser scanning

Video: Raw laser scans create psychedelic patterns THERE hasn't been a light show like this on central Berlin's Oberbaum Bridge since April 1945, when the Nazis blew up its middle section. The bridge was bombed in an attempt to slow the entry of Russia's Red Army into the city. Later, during the cold war, it …

Regulars

Features

No more primal soup: Creating life without water

Earth

No more primal soup: Creating life without water

Did life's cradle look like Death Valley? (Image: Aron Sueveg/Anzenberger/eyevine) The last thing the first life needed was a wet environment – so did it even start here on Earth? "SOME warm little pond." Charles Darwin's speculative description of life's cradle, in a letter written to the botanist Joseph Hooker in 1871, still chimes today. …

Features

Physics

Mystery physics: What does the M in M-theory mean?

Features

Life

Heritage plaque: Our ancestors' health read from teeth

Features

Space

Shakespeare: Did radical astronomy inspire Hamlet?

Features

Health

Shakespeare: The godfather of modern medicine

Features

Life

Shakespeare: Unleashing a tempest in the brain

Features

Culturelab

Smallest subversive: Mathematical fight for our world

Physics

Smallest subversive: Mathematical fight for our world

Thomas Hobbes shared the Jesuits' objection to infinitesimals (Image: Getty Images/DeAgostini) At stake in the fierce 17th-century debate over a mathematical concept was nothing less than our modern world, says Amir Alexander in Infinitesimal DID you know that every time you use your cellphone, you strike a blow for republicanism against both monarchy and a …

CultureLab

Life

The coolest biology is under the microscope

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Keeping your cheese safe

Feedback: Keeping your cheese safe

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Keeping your cheese safe DELIGHT was, we hope, Julian Bradfield's reaction to the gift of a voucher for artisanal cheese from his parents-in-law. It was swiftly followed by amazement at the accompanying hints for the care and storage of cheese …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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