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This week's magazine

18 April 2015

Issue 3017

New Scientist issue 3017 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.

Culture clash: When scientists must tread with care

Opinion
Grow fat, get thin? We put brown fat to the test

Health

Grow fat, get thin? We put brown fat to the test

Features
In the beginning: How Earth got its continents

Earth

In the beginning: How Earth got its continents

Features
Eye of the beholder: How colour vision made us human

Life

Eye of the beholder: How colour vision made us human

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

The science of inequality deserves political attention

The science of inequality deserves political attention

Policy-makers the world over urgently need to address the growing divide between haves and have-nots. Science has much to tell them – if only they would listen

Opinion

Culture clash: When scientists must tread with care

Opinion

News

Control smartphones with a stroke of your hair

Technology

Control smartphones with a stroke of your hair

Video: How stroking your hair can secretly control apps A hair stroke can now mean more than body language Is that woman absent-mindedly stroking her hair? Or is she actually recording a conman's deception and broadcasting his location? It sounds unlikely – but that's just one possible application of a system that lets you turn …

News

Life

Extreme inbreeding is no big deal for mountain gorillas

News

Life

New monkey species revealed thanks to distinctive penis

News

Technology

Smartphone data to give early warning of earthquakes

News

Space

Native Hawaiians halt construction of giant telescope

News

Life

Baboon bone found in famous Lucy skeleton

News

Life

NASA's Curiosity rover finds astronauts could farm water on Mars

News

Health

Your own personal placebo: Genes reveal response to sugar pill

News

Technology

Smartphone holograms can diagnose cervical cancer

News

Technology

Can we stop killer robots? UN meets to debate possible treaty

News

Physics

Parasitic populations solve algorithm problems in half the time

News

Paper microphone may help charge your cellphone

News

Painful baldness cure: Regenerate hair by plucking what's left

News

Technology

Smart drones that think and learn like us to launch this year

News

Technology

Robots go deep inside Fukushima nuclear plant to map radiation

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Space

Reusable Vulcan rockets that parachute to Earth to launch in 2019

News

Space

Philae's sensors show comet 67P has almost no magnetic field

News

Life

Women may have pioneered hunting with weapons

News

Earth

Dutch government taken to court over climate change

News

Environment

Massive UK oil find claim met with caution

News

Environment

60 Seconds

News

Technology

Mind-control exoskeleton gives unprecedented paralysis recovery

News

Life

Neanderthal chefs may have spiced up menus with wild herbs

News

Earth

UK political parties woo voters with green tech promises

News

Technology

IBM's Watson to provide software for personalised healthcare

News

Life

Knuckle cracking caught on film for the first time

News

Opinion

Rich nations are laying road to ecological Armageddon

Earth

Rich nations are laying road to ecological Armageddon

New roads can be a boon to poachers In the last decade, two-thirds of the world's forest elephants – found only in the rainforests of Equatorial Africa – have been slaughtered by ivory poachers. Why the explosion in killing? Since 2000, more than 50,000 kilometres of roads have been bulldozed into this habitat, mostly by …

Opinion

Humans

Morality is rooted in the way societies get their energy

Opinion

Earth

Africa's parks must be off limits for oil and gas

Opinion

Does music strike a chord with everyone?

Opinion

Aperture

Nice legs: Native American bee poses for his close-up

Life

Nice legs: Native American bee poses for his close-up

(Image: Clay Bolt/www.claybolt.com, www.beautifulbees.org) HE MAY look soft and furry – but don't be fooled. "Out of all the species of bees that I've photographed during this project, this little guy was the only one that actually looked up at me and bared its mandibles," says photographer Clay Bolt. Bolt has set himself the task …

Regulars

Features

In the beginning: How Earth got its continents

Earth

In the beginning: How Earth got its continents

Dry land was essential for life like us to evolve – but how did Earth evolve dry land? A unique mountain landscape in northern Pakistan holds the clues

Features

Life

Eye of the beholder: How colour vision made us human

Features

Health

Grow fat, get thin? We put brown fat to the test

Features

Culturelab

Future ruin: Can we design our way out of eco-crisis?

Earth

Future ruin: Can we design our way out of eco-crisis?

One Central Park in Sydney (Image: James D. Morgan/REX) Event: Designs of the Year 2015, Design Museum, London In friendly competition with Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet Horace Smith once wrote a poem entitled Ozymandias . Shelley's version is the one we remember, but Smith's is compelling for another reason. He imagines a hunter traipsing …

CultureLab

Life

The Triumph of Seeds: Our huge debt to tiny marvels

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Some numerology of astronomy

Feedback: Some numerology of astronomy

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Some numerology of astronomy WHAT might be the hidden significance of the number 187.5? We reported that a measure of the delay between the arrival of low- and high-frequency components of mysterious bursts of radio waves comes in exact multiples …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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