Subscribe now

This week's magazine

14 February 2015

Issue 3008

New Scientist issue 3008 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

We can have more stuff without the guilt trip

Environment

We can have more stuff without the guilt trip

Opinion
Sun-free farming: Indoor crops under the spotlight

Earth

Sun-free farming: Indoor crops under the spotlight

Features
Elemental risk: Securing the raw stuff of modern life

Earth

Elemental risk: Securing the raw stuff of modern life

Features
Rules of attraction: 10 biggest love myths exploded

Humans

Rules of attraction: 10 biggest love myths exploded

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

We can have more stuff without the guilt trip

Environment

We can have more stuff without the guilt trip

Many in rich countries worry about overconsumption exhausting the world’s resources. But it’s ethics rather than minerals that are in short supply

Opinion

News

The island paradise overrun by giant cannibals

Life

The island paradise overrun by giant cannibals

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

News

Technology

Add a dash of quantum for secure cloud computing

News

Technology

Robot firefighter puts out its first blaze

News

Space

Dark force could keep Milky Way's neighbours away

News

Life

Meet – and hear – the world's first bilingual chimps

News

Earth

Melting ice spells volcanic trouble

News

Space

First stars get 150 million years younger overnight

News

Life

The secret of the world's largest seed revealed

News

Space

Pluto's evaporating ice leaves it with a blank face

News

Technology

Hackathon invents the digital tools to fix Congress

News

Health

Don't read this aloud in your head. Drat, failed

News

Physics

Maths model suggests glass ceiling can be cracked from below

News

Physics

Magic number makes acid fall apart in water

News

Health

Musical software helps mothers push babies out faster

News

Technology

The four main roadblocks holding up self-driving cars

News

Space

One Per Cent

News

Health

Chronic fatigue syndrome gets yet another name

News

Health

Unfounded vaccine myths harm measles herd immunity

News

Space

Bold spacecraft prepare for lift off – and re-entry

News

Space

Neil Armstrong's secret bag of moon-landing souvenirs

News

Fat chance of advice

News

Earth

Rise in shark attacks does not mean more sharks

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Not just obesity – faecal transplants' weird effects

News

Should the UK frack for gas?

News

Life

Glassed-in DNA makes the ultimate time capsule

News

Earth

Geoengineering would be 'irrational and irresponsible'

News

Life

Donors wanted: your bodily waste could be a big earner

News

Opinion

Crossing the germ line – facing genetics' great taboo

Health

Crossing the germ line – facing genetics' great taboo

Let's stop drawing lines in the sand when it comes to genetically modifying people and talk about engineering everybody

Opinion

Earth

We've got the evolution of complex cells inside-out

Opinion

Physics

Bad air day: See my 'tornado in a bottle'

Opinion

Analysis

Drop in Ebola cases may thwart drug and vaccine trials

Drop in Ebola cases may thwart drug and vaccine trials

Will the drugs work? WE MAY have lost a historic chance to test drugs and vaccines against the Ebola virus, which could leave us without the weapons to prevent the next outbreak. The epidemic in West Africa prompted an unprecedented rush of clinical trials. But some are now being abandoned and others may produce few …

News

Aperture

See one of the world's dirtiest jobs: e-waste disposal

Earth

See one of the world's dirtiest jobs: e-waste disposal

(Image: Kai Loeffelbein/Laif/Camera Press) THERE is an air of contentment about the scene, of a responsible job proudly and diligently done. Yet these women in Guiyu, a cluster of villages on the south China coast, are doing some of the world's dirtiest work: recycling electronic waste. Laptops, smartphones, microwaves and fridges contain a cocktail of …

Regulars

Features

Sun-free farming: Indoor crops under the spotlight

Earth

Sun-free farming: Indoor crops under the spotlight

It tastes great, is hyper-local and is available all year round. But is growing food indoors in our cities really sustainable, asks Michael Le Page

Features

Earth

Elemental risk: Securing the raw stuff of modern life

Features

Humans

Rules of attraction: 10 biggest love myths exploded

Features

Culturelab

Work in an age of robots

Technology

Work in an age of robots

You may also like…our preferences are being reflected back at us (Image: Naresh Singh / Millennium Images UK) As automation and the internet sweep away employment certainties even for the creative classes, three books explore the depth of our predicament WHAT you are about to read was written by a human. Honest. In draft, this …

CultureLab

Earth

Risking everything to save songbirds

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Men make monthly mistakes

Environment

Feedback: Men make monthly mistakes

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Men make monthly mistakes PUBLICIST Diana Ziskin writes to alert us that "The creators of MyPeriod Tracker App are five typical guys who were tired of the drama, discourse and sometimes absurd fights they would come home to with their …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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