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This week's magazine

2 August 2014

Issue 2980

New Scientist issue 2980 cover
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Editor's picks

Fat and sugar: Diet of confusion

Fat and sugar: Diet of confusion

Opinion
Heart attack on a plate? The truth about saturated fat

Health

Heart attack on a plate? The truth about saturated fat

Features
Einstein's perfect theory: General relativity rebooted

Space

Einstein's perfect theory: General relativity rebooted

Features
Ghost of the cloud forest: Seeking the white possum

Earth

Ghost of the cloud forest: Seeking the white possum

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Fat and sugar: Diet of confusion

Fat and sugar: Diet of confusion

In the debate over food and health, it is too soon to absolve fat and demonise sugar. Some nutritional clarity is urgently needed

Opinion

News

An easier way to turn plant scraps to plastics

Earth

An easier way to turn plant scraps to plastics

Made from cocoa pod husks, though sadly not edible like chocolate Save those food scraps – they could be your next grocery bag. A new way of turning vegetable waste directly into bioplastics could make such materials even more environmentally friendly. Current bioplastics are created by processing plant material to create short molecules called monomers, …

News

Life

Feathersaurus: plant-eating dinos had plumage too

News

Technology

US government chatbot gets you to tell all

News

Life

The super-abundant virus controlling your gut bacteria

News

Life

Decisions ripple through flocks of birds like a wave

News

Health

'Epigenetic' gene tweaks seem to trigger cancer

News

Space

Ancient Earth fossils could be found on the moon

News

Earth

UK failing to protect bees from pesticides, say MPs

News

Health

Protector gene's evil twin linked to spread of cancer

News

Health

Ebola outbreak: What you need to know about its spread

News

Space

Europe makes final delivery run to space station

News

Earth

UK's national parks may not be safe from fracking

News

Technology

Google launches new project to understand human health

News

Earth

Smoky wildfires in US and Canada damage lung health

News

60 Seconds

News

Pigeon paradox reveals quantum cosmic connections

News

Zoologger: Octopus mum broods for record-breaking time

News

Earth

Local people preserve the environment better than governments

News

Space

Leaving Earth made the moon lemon-shaped

News

Technology

Iron supplements in nano form are gentler on your gut

News

Face tester can predict how you will judge a face

News

Technology

Robotic suit gives shipyard workers super strength

News

Technology

Twitter bots grow up and take on the world

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Life

Killer sperm ravages internal organs of luckless worms

News

Life

Brazil bans catfish fishery that used dolphins as bait

News

Life

Bloodsuckers fed on dinosaurs 130 million years ago

News

Opinion

Are we thinking about OCD backwards?

Life

Are we thinking about OCD backwards?

Everyone knows that thoughts cause actions which cause habits. What if this is the wrong way round?

Opinion

World's poor need grid power, not just solar panels

Opinion

Leopards can be good neighbours in Mumbai

Opinion

Analysis

When NASA space crews play make believe

Space

When NASA space crews play make believe

We're on Earth, so are we astro-nots? EVEN astronauts sometimes pretend they are in space. Over the past week, two simulated trips came to a close. One took place on a Hawaiian volcano, while another dove deep to an underwater habitat off Florida's coast. In both cases, the crew was tasked with a vital mission: …

News

Technology

The secret system controlling your Facebook News Feed

News

Aperture

Space salad glows purple in a greenhouse made for Mars

Space

Space salad glows purple in a greenhouse made for Mars

(Image: David Hecker/Getty Images) WOULD-BE Mars colonist and space-flight entrepreneur Elon Musk often jokes that he wants "to die on Mars, but not on impact". He probably doesn't mean starve to death, though. He'll have to hope some horticultural research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Bremen pays off, in which case he and …

Regulars

Features

Heart attack on a plate? The truth about saturated fat

Health

Heart attack on a plate? The truth about saturated fat

After decades of health warnings, the idea that steak, cheese and lard are bad for your heart is melting away. The truth is more complex – and delicious

Features

Space

Einstein's perfect theory: General relativity rebooted

Features

Earth

Ghost of the cloud forest: Seeking the white possum

Features

Culturelab

When art changes the rules for science

When art changes the rules for science

William Latham's Human Mutator2 is an artistic exercise in evolution (Image: William Latham, Human Mutator2 Reflector image in time, 2014, multimedia) A new exhibition, Automatic Art, explores how art that was built on logical and mathematical rules ended up giving science new ways of seeing the world The story begins in 1917, when the Bolshevik …

CultureLab

Earth

A globetrotting, water-saving tour of sewage gardens

CultureLab

More

Chemistry of success: careers with a chemical degree

Chemistry of success: careers with a chemical degree

A career in chemistry can look tough for recent graduates – and not just because of the scientific rigours of a potential life in the lab. An American Chemical Society (ACS) survey of 2013 graduates found that 14.9 per cent were unemployed jobseekers five months after graduation, up from 12.6 per cent in 2012. However, …

Careers

Regulars

Feedback: Such lightness with their fear

Feedback: Such lightness with their fear

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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