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This week's magazine

23 January 2016

Issue 3057

New Scientist issue 3057 cover
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Editor's picks

Howell

Technology

Science is vital to help world shape a new economic era

Opinion
Solar system mysteries: Could we live on the moon?

Space

Solar system mysteries: Could we live on the moon?

Features
How giant viruses could rewrite the story of life on Earth

Life

How giant viruses could rewrite the story of life on Earth

Features
Solar system mysteries: What's inside Saturn?

Space

Solar system mysteries: What's inside Saturn?

Features
Solar system mysteries: What happened to Venus?

Space

Solar system mysteries: What happened to Venus?

Features
Mind games: How con artists get the better of you

Life

Mind games: How con artists get the better of you

Features
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.

Space

Solar system mysteries: Why is the sun magnetic?

Features
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.

Life

Solar system mysteries: Where can life exist?

Features
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.

Space

Solar system mysteries: Is there a planet X?

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Howell

Technology

Science is vital to help world shape a new economic era

As the fourth industrial revolution dawns economic and political leaders will need ever greater input from science to navigate its complexities, says Lee Howell

Opinion

News

Autonomous cars only ease traffic when paired with smart lights

Technology

Autonomous cars only ease traffic when paired with smart lights

A car with no driver, nor even a steering wheel, pulls up at your door. You jump in, bound for the airport. The car pulls away, turns off your street onto a main road and… hits traffic? It turns out that even when autonomous cars become reality , they won't help much to ease the …

News

Health

UK researchers get go ahead for gene-editing human embryos

News

Space

We've found the brightest ever supernova but can't explain it

News

Technology

Sensitive robot skin has a memory and knows what it has touched

News

Space

Commercial spaceflight newcomer allows quick ISS return trips

News

Earth

UK rains broke river flow record and climate change is to blame

News

Technology

Race of world's tiniest cars set to drive nano-robot revolution

News

Life

Six in hospital after French pain relief drug trial goes wrong

News

Life

Shape-shifting worm creates five different versions of itself

News

Physics

Physicists dream up crystal based on elegant satellite dance

News

Space

Comets can't explain weird 'alien megastructure' star after all

News

Watch as SpaceX doesn't quite manage to land a rocket at sea

News

Technology

Tweets and Reddit posts give snapshot of our changing language

News

Physics

Frozen quantum gas tied into knots for the first time

News

Life

Brain monitor the size of a grain of rice dissolves after use

News

Life

Gene change could stop GM bacteria surviving outside the lab

News

Life

Black hole sun could support bizarre life on orbiting planets

News

Your home is a jungle inhabited by 100 different species

News

Your face is mapped on the surface of other people's brains

News

Grisly desert massacre site reveals one of the earliest wars

News

Quasars in distant galaxies caught switching on suddenly

News

Humans adapted to Arctic life 10,000 years earlier than thought

News

Technology

One Per Cent

News

Opioid overdose deaths in US 'resemble new infectious disease'

News

Health

First clue to treating mystery disease of US Pacific island

News

Head transplant carried out on monkey, claims maverick surgeon

News

Humans

Anti-ISIS propaganda machine looks to change the message

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Meet the animals that are defying odds by escaping extinction

News

Technology

Virtual idyll could aid convalescence and stave off depression

News

Opinion

State of the science: The real message in Obama's last address

Humans

State of the science: The real message in Obama's last address

In his final State of the Union address, Barack Obama talked up the need for Americans to set aside ideology and heed the evidence, says Andrew Rosenberg

Opinion

Is that a GM bean in my soup? Campbell's is right, we must know

Opinion

Space

From Africa to the stars: Why Ethiopia needs a space programme

Opinion

Aperture

Dramatic landscape shaped by Iceland's devastating eruption

Earth

Dramatic landscape shaped by Iceland's devastating eruption

"IT REMINDED me of a landscape from The Lord of the Rings ," says photographer Feodor Pitcairn , who captured this image of the Laki fissure in southern Iceland. But these highlands weren't always green and peaceful. Between 1783 and 1784, they were flooded with lava when one of the most powerful volcanic events that …

Regulars

Features

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.

Life

Solar system mysteries: Where can life exist?

We used to think life was constrained to a narrow, warm band around a star – but recent discoveries on icy moons suggest life could exist almost anywhere

Features

Space

Solar system mysteries: Why is the sun magnetic?

Features

Space

Solar system mysteries: What happened to Venus?

Features

Space

Solar system mysteries: What's inside Saturn?

Features

Space

Solar system mysteries: Is there a planet X?

Features

Life

How giant viruses could rewrite the story of life on Earth

Features

Life

Mind games: How con artists get the better of you

Features

Space

Solar system mysteries: Could we live on the moon?

Features

Culturelab

<em>The Wheel</em>: A new book puts a basic technology in its place

Technology

The Wheel: A new book puts a basic technology in its place

Why has it taken 6000 years for the wheel to come into its own? The answer may unpick some of our most cherished beliefs about how technology works

CultureLab

Humans

Verse in the universe: The scientific power of poetry

CultureLab

Regulars

Cartoon showing police officer checking a book

Feedback: Delhi's ban on even-numbered cars raises odd defence

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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