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This week's magazine

1 November 2014

Issue 2993

New Scientist issue 2993 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.

Environment

TTIP: Free trade should be freely discussed

Opinion
Smoke without fire: What's the truth on e-cigarettes?

Technology

Smoke without fire: What's the truth on e-cigarettes?

Features
Goodbye, paper: What we miss when we read on screen

Life

Goodbye, paper: What we miss when we read on screen

Features
Weird wet worlds: Why Earth is lucky to have oceans

Earth

Weird wet worlds: Why Earth is lucky to have oceans

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Reading on screens is different – does it matter?

Life

Reading on screens is different – does it matter?

We're beginning to understand how digital devices affect literacy – but don't assume that paper is always better than screens

Opinion

Environment

TTIP: Free trade should be freely discussed

Opinion

News

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.

Physics

Historic quantum software is run for the first time

The first piece of software to show the potential of quantum computing has finally been run on a real machine, 20 years after it was initially dreamed up. Although it doesn't do anything useful on its own, implementing the algorithm could lead to more practical computers powered by the strange properties of quantum mechanics . …

News

Earth

EU emissions target isn't as ambitious as it seems

News

Space

Comet stinks of rotten eggs and cat wee, finds Rosetta

News

Health

Future scenarios show how easily Ebola could explode

News

Life

Zoologger: Extreme nomad scrambles for shrimp bonanza

News

Health

Biological litmus paper detects Ebola strains

News

Health

Can chocolate boost memory? Only in insane amounts

News

Space

Fresh hints of dark matter at Milky Way's core

News

Earth

Arctic melt means more severe winters likely - for now

News

Earth

Farm salt poisoning costs $27 billion annually

News

Technology

Phone call pulse shows millions hitting the beach

News

Cold moon Enceladus has heart of warm fluff

News

Technology

Gold origami exerts strange power over light

News

Technology

Computer with human-like learning will program itself

News

Life

Virus recreated after 700 years in icy caribou poo

News

Earth

Plan to save Great Barrier Reef doomed to failure

News

UK to build world's biggest weather supercomputer

News

Guzzling milk might boost your risk of breaking bones

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Brain decoder can eavesdrop on your inner voice

News

Earth

A killer plague wouldn't save the planet from us

News

Life

Why bird divorces are good news for the females

News

Technology

White noise for your nose cancels pungent aromas

News

Technology

Food bland? Electric spoon zaps taste into every bite

News

Technology

Heart ops shrink thanks to surgeon in your vein

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Health

Number of disease outbreaks jumps fourfold since 1980

News

Health

Cellular alchemy turns skin cells into brain cells

News

Technology

Trap cells in sound to create strong cartilage

News

Space

Supernova shock waves create glowing arcs across sky

News

Opinion

Evolution can help head off the next financial crash

Physics

Evolution can help head off the next financial crash

To avoid financial crises we must ditch ideological arguments about regulation and understand that the economy is an ecosystem, say three complexity theorists

Opinion

TTIP: How the world's largest trade deal affects you

Opinion

Earth

TTIP: Europe will still be safe – but more sensible

Opinion

TTIP: Beware the treaty's empty economic promises

Opinion

Health

TTIP: Healthy profits, but what about people?

Opinion

Analysis

Computers are learning to see the world like we do

Technology

Computers are learning to see the world like we do

It is surprisingly difficult to build computers that can recognise the many different objects we see every day, but they are getting better all the time

News

Aperture

'Is that a rift in space-time, daddy, or just a cloud?'

Earth

'Is that a rift in space-time, daddy, or just a cloud?'

(Image: Nick Moir/Oculi/Agence VU/Camera Press) VETERAN Australian storm-chasing photographer Nick Moir was at home with his kids when the radars he watches religiously showed Sydney was about to get battered by unusually strong wind and rain. "I threw the kids in the car and said 'do you want to go look at a storm?'," Moir …

Regulars

Features

Smoke without fire: What's the truth on e-cigarettes?

Technology

Smoke without fire: What's the truth on e-cigarettes?

Scroll down to download this guide to the major facts and figures about e-cigarettes They've been called safe, dangerous, a way to quit smoking – and a way to start. New Scientist sifts through the evidence about e-cigarettes THE juice bar is clean and bright with a nice-looking selection of drinks and cakes – just …

Features

Life

Goodbye, paper: What we miss when we read on screen

Features

Earth

Weird wet worlds: Why Earth is lucky to have oceans

Features

Culturelab

Copyrights and wrongs in the battle for ownership

Technology

Copyrights and wrongs in the battle for ownership

Counterfeit goods are rampant, but online piracy is a juggernaut (Image: Xinhua News Agency/Eyevine) There's more than one way to handle authorship and copyright in the digital age, according to The Copyright Wars by Peter Baldwin "NEVER," I once told a crowd of students, "take advice on copyright from a professor." The professor next to …

CultureLab

Physics

A comedian stands up for sums

CultureLab

More

Massive flares erupt from largest sunspot in 25 years

Space

Massive flares erupt from largest sunspot in 25 years

(Image: NASA/GSFC/SDO) A massive solar eruption on 26 October was the sixth large flare since 19 October, all emanating from one gigantic sunspot called AR 12192. Measuring 129,000 kilometres across, it's the largest sunspot since 1990. For comparison, that's a spot 10 times the diameter of Earth. Does it pose dangers to us? Earth's atmosphere protects life on …

Regulars

Bottling Britain's wind energy

Careers

Regulars

Feedback: Read, watch and forget

Feedback: Read, watch and forget

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Read, watch and forget ENTERTAINMENT is becoming difficult, reports Geoffrey Milos. Browsing a library recently, each of the newish books he opened included a similar stern warning: "The information herein may not be stored in any information retrieval system whatsoever." …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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