Subscribe now

This week's magazine

26 July 2014

Issue 2979

New Scientist issue 2979 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.

Earth

A six-state California faces a water war

Opinion
California's Katrina? The great delta dilemma

Earth

California's Katrina? The great delta dilemma

Features
Your third hand: Why tongues have the mouse licked

Technology

Your third hand: Why tongues have the mouse licked

Features
Rogue waves: The real monsters of the deep

Earth

Rogue waves: The real monsters of the deep

Features
Quantum split: Particle this way, properties that way

Physics

Quantum split: Particle this way, properties that way

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Baidu will battle Google for hearts and minds

Technology

Baidu will battle Google for hearts and minds

The digital lives of people outside the West are up for grabs and a Chinese dragon will fight Silicon Valley giants to get to them first

Opinion

Earth

A six-state California faces a water war

Opinion

News

Google Streetview cars sniff out gas leaks in cities

Earth

Google Streetview cars sniff out gas leaks in cities

Methane well heads may also be a source of leaks Now Google Street View cars can do more than let you explore places you have never visited. Sensors strapped to the top of the cars have mapped hundreds of methane leaks around Boston, New York's Staten Island and Indianapolis. The cars found about one leak …

News

Space

Rosetta's target comet is a surprise double space rock

News

Health

Biological pacemaker keeps a beat without the hardware

News

Health

Asthma drugs stunt growth – but only by a centimetre

News

Physics

Higgs boson glimpsed at work for first time

News

Earth

Fix farms in a few countries and feed 3 billion people

News

Earth

Australia will pay dearly for repealing its carbon tax

News

Earth

Vast rock arches sculpt themselves out of sand

News

Health

Drug combo 'game changer' for drug-resistant TB

News

Space

Galaxy mapper's first discovery: surprise space debris

News

Life

Hungry seals tour offshore wind farms looking for food

News

Technology

Smart goggles let helicopter pilots see through fog

News

Technology

Lasers make fibre optic tubes out of thin air

News

Health

Gaza conflict will traumatise a generation of children

News

Life

Alcohol improves your sense of smell – in moderation

News

Technology

Brazil to unleash GM-mosquito swarms to fight dengue

News

Health

Threatwatch: Chikungunya virus hits the US and Europe

News

Life

MH17: Satellite data points finger at Russian militia

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Worm neuron hack to probe the mysteries of our brains

News

Life

Icy moon explorer gets an Alaska road test

News

Earth

Oxygen oasis for early life found in ancient rock

News

Technology

Baxter the robot brings his gentle touch to novel jobs

News

Technology

Art by algorithm: Computer evolves new artworks

News

Technology

Nerve implant retrains your brain to stop tinnitus

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Earth

Zoologger: Moose dribble turns off grass's toxic defences

News

Physics

Liquid bits could brim with data in future computers

News

Opinion

Genetic superheroes wanted to fight childhood diseases

Health

Genetic superheroes wanted to fight childhood diseases

Biologist Stephen Friend is searching for exceptional people who carry genes for serious childhood disease but have never got sick – are you one of them?

Opinion

Earth

Genetic moderation is needed to debate our food future

Opinion

Earth

We're putting a forest on a climate-change fast-track

Opinion

Analysis

The new Google? Baidu's big plans to bust out of China

Technology

The new Google? Baidu's big plans to bust out of China

China's biggest search engine is pushing at the boundaries of artificial intelligence – and self-driving bikes are just the beginning

News

Aperture

Psychedelic cells are fruit of Alan Turing's equations

Life

Psychedelic cells are fruit of Alan Turing's equations

(Image: Jonathan McCabe ) WE ALL know the world can look weird and wonderful under the microscope, but who knew cells could look this pretty? Actually, you won't find these psychedelic blobs in any living creature on Earth, because contrary to appearances this image has been created by a computer. Generative artist Jonathan McCabe works …

Regulars

Features

California's Katrina? The great delta dilemma

Earth

California's Katrina? The great delta dilemma

IT COULD happen tomorrow. As California is sweltering through another hot, dry summer, the ground in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta begins to shake as a large earthquake strikes. Here, a network of river channels wend their way around dozens of "islands" as they flow down to San Francisco Bay. The locals call them islands but …

Features

Technology

Your third hand: Why tongues have the mouse licked

Features

Earth

Rogue waves: The real monsters of the deep

Features

Physics

Quantum split: Particle this way, properties that way

Features

Culturelab

Chronicling a revolution in digital art

Chronicling a revolution in digital art

Assemblance delights the hand as well as the eye and ear (Image: Assemblance, 2014/courtesy of Umbrellium) Retro arcade games, cutting-edge special effects and interactive birdmen are all on show at a major retrospective of digital art at London's Barbican Centre Tiny pixelated organisms live, move, multiply and die in cold little ponds of light on …

CultureLab

Life

A parent's guide to reading a baby's mind

CultureLab

Health

How Shakespeare's intensity may help people with autism

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: A whole world of Tweet<SUP>TM</SUP>

Feedback: A whole world of TweetTM

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more A world of Tweet ™ WHILE checking last week's column , we idly wondered whether "Tweet" is a trademark. The answer, of course, is yes. On 27 May 2010, Twitter gained a European trademark registration for use of the word …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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