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This week's magazine

31 October 2015

Issue 3045

New Scientist issue 3045 cover
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Editor's picks

Tech's ability to close language gaps deserves cautious support

Technology

Tech's ability to close language gaps deserves cautious support

Opinion
Appy talk: How tech is changing the way we learn languages

Technology

Appy talk: How tech is changing the way we learn languages

Features
Closing the last loophole for unhackable quantum security

Technology

Closing the last loophole for unhackable quantum security

Features
The real first farmers: How agriculture was a global invention

Life

The real first farmers: How agriculture was a global invention

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Tech's ability to close language gaps deserves cautious support

Technology

Tech's ability to close language gaps deserves cautious support

Machine translation and apps that try to ease language-learning are flourishing. But whether tech will save or kill off endangered tongues is hard to foresee

Opinion

News

First Earth-mass planet around nearest star may be an illusion

Life

First Earth-mass planet around nearest star may be an illusion

Alpha Centauri Bb may be an ex-exoplanet. This long-sought world was announced with great excitement in 2012 as the first Earth-mass planet in the nearest star system to our own , but a new statistical analysis has revealed it to be nothing more than an apparition. The original discovery was the work of Xavier Dumusque …

News

Life

23andMe relaunches direct-to-consumer tests for genetic disease

News

Life

Howler monkeys have to choose between big balls and big bawls

News

Earth

Bees found farming fungus for first time to feed larvae

News

Earth

China must stop censoring the debate on killer air pollution

News

Life

Old rat brains rejuvenated and new neurons grown by asthma drug

News

Earth

El Niño-powered hurricane Patricia set to hit Mexico tonight

News

Earth

Ocean’s hidden green plankton revealed by fixing glitch in model

News

Earth

Lion populations to halve in most of Africa in next 20 years

News

Humans

Musical training may give your brain waves more rhythm

News

Earth

Deep source of Afghan-Pakistan earthquake means lower death toll

News

Health

Baby due date could be predicted more precisely with cervix test

News

Earth

El Niño forces king penguins to swim 130km further for fish

News

Physics

Map shows where van Gogh's Sunflowers could lose their lustre

News

Life

Cassini probe to dive deep through watery plume on Enceladus

News

Health

Tuberculosis now leading cause of death from infectious disease

News

Space

Mystery bright spots could be first glimpse of another universe

News

Earth

Bumblebees deployed to spray crops with pesticides

News

Space

Rosetta's comet has oxygen made before the solar system's birth

News

Life

Massive vats of fake meat brewed in goo could change how we eat

News

Earth

Money sidetracks climate negotiators ahead of Paris summit

News

Life

Why pleasing AI headhunters could help you land your perfect job

News

Earth

Swarms of pumpkin-like robots could explore and map the oceans

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

60 Seconds

News

Self-sacrificing immune cells spew out DNA nets to trap invaders

News

Space

Exploding stars could be lit by hearts of dark matter

News

Health

Anaesthetic blunts painful memories recalled before you go under

News

Technology

Stress levels of 1000 doctors tracked in huge wearables test

News

Opinion

What living with a face transplant has taught me about myself

Health

What living with a face transplant has taught me about myself

There's part of you that has nothing to do with what you see in the mirror, discovered Carmen Blandin Tarleton after an attack that left her with 80 per cent burns

Opinion

Health

For health tech to thrive, don't keep the evidence under wraps

Opinion

Life

My brain collection could help us all thrive in old age

Opinion

Aperture

See the diverse beauty of colourful land snails around the world

Life

See the diverse beauty of colourful land snails around the world

NO, THAT'S not a minor character from the latest Star Wars movie. This exotic-looking creature with its anteater-like snout is Tropidophora cuvieriana , an example of the incredible diversity and, yes, strange beauty of land snails. "Most people think land snails are just ugly and slimy, and some are," says photographer Ingo Arndt. "But many …

Regulars

Features

The real first farmers: How agriculture was a global invention

Life

The real first farmers: How agriculture was a global invention

Agriculture was independently invented at least 11 times on four continents – not just in the Middle East. It's time to rethink how modern civilisation took root

Features

Technology

Closing the last loophole for unhackable quantum security

Features

Technology

Appy talk: How tech is changing the way we learn languages

Features

Culturelab

New Scientist logo

Inside the Samuel Johnson book prize: The science problem

Why are there so few science and technology books on the shortlists – or even longlists – of mainstream book prizes, asks one of the judges

CultureLab

Life

The Master Algorithm: A world remade by machines that learn

CultureLab

More

The algorithms that make sense of your health data

The algorithms that make sense of your health data

Making the most of technology to track wellness means matching high-quality data to powerful analysis

philips

Regulars

Feedback: in which we discover the apple of our ire

Feedback: in which we discover the apple of our ire

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more The apples of discord HOW'S this for fruitloopery? We can rot apples with the power of our minds, says a lifestyle coach. Self-described self-improvement guru Nikki Owen claims that focusing negativity on a slice of apple will cause it to …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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