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This week's magazine

6 September 2014

Issue 2985

New Scientist issue 2985 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.

In our world beyond nations, the future is medieval

Opinion
Illustration of maps becoming liquid and dripping their colours onto a world map

Humans

End of nations: Is there an alternative to countries?

Features
Code generation: Kids who program before they can read

Life

Code generation: Kids who program before they can read

Features
Burning blue sky: Earth's cloud shield is failing

Earth

Burning blue sky: Earth's cloud shield is failing

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.

In our world beyond nations, the future is medieval

Islamic State is more like a postmodern network than a nation state - so we’ll need new tactics to deal with it

Opinion

News

Taming of the bunny rewrote rabbit genome

Life

Taming of the bunny rewrote rabbit genome

Just a few genetic tweaks from running wild When humans tamed rabbits, we changed around 100 regions of their genome. The shifts were subtle, but they may have made domestic rabbits less fearful than wild ones. Pet rabbits will happily sit in their owner's lap, but wild rabbits are famously timid, fleeing at the slightest …

News

Life

Moving home? Your microbes will make the trip too

News

Space

Voyager 2's view of solar system's edge will be unique

News

Earth

No more pause: Warming will be non-stop from now on

News

Life

Painful memories eased by inhaling xenon gas

News

Health

New push for better handling of football head injuries

News

Technology

Use of 'language of deceit' betrays scientific fraud

News

Life

Iron Age CSI finds gold thieves died in the act

News

Health

Major quarantine and experimental vaccines to curb Ebola

News

Technology

Jennifer Lawrence photo hack highlights risks of cloud

News

Life

First Neanderthal etching is a #stoneagehashtag

News

Technology

'Factorisation factory' smashes number-cracking record

News

Life

Zoologger: Cockatoos learn to make and use a tool

News

Earth

Great Barrier Reef may be safe from massive mud dump

News

Life

Children who skip breakfast might raise diabetes risk

News

Health

Wrecked knees? Nose cartilage can fix them

News

Earth

Bill Gates's epic project transforms farming in Africa

News

Earth

Fungal fix for UK's Himalayan balsam problem

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

Chameleons and holograms: Dark energy hunt gets weird

News

Earth

Jobless young people desert sinking Pacific islands

News

Space

'Soccer-ball' robots to patrol space for deadly junk

News

Technology

$10 million tricorder X Prize unveils 10 finalists

News

Technology

Tiny buckybombs could make bacteria explode

News

Technology

Iris register to eyedentify voting fraud in Somaliland

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Technology

Silence your phone with the radio wave of a hand

News

Life

Mammals' reptile ancestors may have hunted at night

News

Health

US aiming to help more heroin addicts and jail fewer

News

Health

Gene variant found that may help people live to be 100

News

Health

Boost for cancer therapy sought by Ashya King's family

News

Opinion

No ghosts, no gods, no aliens on my atheism channel

Life

No ghosts, no gods, no aliens on my atheism channel

Viewers in the US are bombarded with nonsense masquerading as fact. They should switch to AtheistTV, says its founder

Opinion

Life

Ebola's silver lining: We can clamp down on bushmeat

Opinion

Health

We need shrinks in hospital emergency rooms

Opinion

Analysis

Targeted TV ads sell different people different stuff

Technology

Targeted TV ads sell different people different stuff

Networks are tapping into your personal data to show you ads based on your demographic or even your voting record

News

Aperture

See all the copper from a mine in one giant ball

Earth

See all the copper from a mine in one giant ball

(Image: Dillon Marsh) IT'S not an alien invasion or a scene from Doctor Who . For over a hundred years, the West O'okiep Mine in South Africa yielded large amounts of copper. This eerie image, created nearly half a century after it closed, represents the copper extracted throughout the mine's lifetime – all 284,000 tonnes …

Regulars

Features

Illustration of maps becoming liquid and dripping their colours onto a world map

Humans

End of nations: Is there an alternative to countries?

Nation states cause some of our biggest problems, from civil war to climate inaction. Science suggests there are better ways to run a planet

Features

Life

Code generation: Kids who program before they can read

Features

Earth

Burning blue sky: Earth's cloud shield is failing

Features

Culturelab

A manifesto for playing god with human evolution

Life

A manifesto for playing god with human evolution

"Would you be willing to exchange your clothing for plumage?" (Image: Erik Madigan Heck/Trunk Archive) Fancy living forever, or uploading your mind to the net? The Proactionary Imperative embraces transhumanist dreams, but reminds why we need medical ethics IN THE early 1960s prank comedy duo James Coyle and Mal Sharpe wandered the streets of San …

CultureLab

Life

Harness randomness to succeed at life

CultureLab

Space

Myths and reality of the Nazi space rocket

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Taking Einstein's name in vain

Feedback: Taking Einstein's name in vain

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Taking Einstein's name in vain QUOTATIONS, Albert Einstein said, "do not give your Tweets even the dubious benefits of the Argument from Authority". Except, of course, that he didn't say that . We nevertheless predict that any day now our …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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