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This week's magazine

19 August 2017

Issue 3139

New Scientist issue 3139 cover
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Editor's picks

umbilical cord

Life

Banking a baby's cord blood may save their life. Is it worth it?

News
chemist

Atomic assembly lines are a small victory for chemists

News
Robin Carhart-Harris

Humans

Meet the man giving people psychedelics for science

Features
masked terrorist

Humans

Anatomy of terror: What makes normal people become extremists?

Features
illustration of factory work

Technology

Atomic Legoland: How to build wonder stuff from the atom up

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Charlottesville

To tackle extremism, we need to know the enemy

We can’t counter extremism without understanding it – and that means supporting those researching it, not suspecting their motives

News

Atomic assembly lines are a small victory for chemists

News

News

A white dust devil against the red Martian surface

Space

Mars’s surface hosts millions of towering dust devils every day

Martian dust devils: good for the climate, not so good for future space travellers The Red Planet is plagued by devils. It now seems that Mars’s surface is teeming with 10 times as many dust devils as we thought. These rotating columns of dust form around low-pressure air pockets and are common on Mars , …

News

Health

Type 1 diabetes may be halted by experimental immunotherapy

News

Space

Moon’s magnetic field lasted twice as long as we thought it did

News

Space

Tethered satellites could see the moon’s weird swirls up close

News

Humans

No, North Korea (probably) won’t nuke the US territory of Guam

News

Earth

Sea snakes are turning black in response to industrial pollution

News

Technology

DeepMind AI teaches itself about the world by watching videos

News

Technology

Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon

News

Life

Primate brains react differently to faces of friends and VIPs

News

Earth

Fighting to breathe in the face of Canada’s wildfire emergency

News

Health

CRISPR makes piglets that may be better organ donors for humans

News

Life

Goldfish go months without oxygen by making alcohol inside cells

News

Life

Tottering piglets can't walk at first but learn super-fast

News

Health

Trump says he’ll declare US opioid epidemic a national emergency

News

Earth

Mystery of missing tsunamis explained by geological model

News

Technology

AI artist conjures up convincing fake worlds from memories

News

Technology

Smart cameras spot when hospital staff don’t wash their hands

News

Health

Activated charcoal drug can protect microbiome from antibiotics

News

Health

Choosing alternative cancer treatment doubles your risk of death

News

Life

Fish eat bits of plastic because they think they smell good

News

Humans

Ancient warriors killed and ate their dogs as rite of passage

News

Earth

This year may be one of the worst ever for Atlantic hurricanes

News

Earth

There are almost 100 new volcanoes hiding under Antarctic ice

News

Technology

How US diplomats may have been attacked by sonic weapons in Cuba

News

Life

Twitch gamers live-stream their vital signs to keep fans hooked

News

Technology

We can program robots not to get all up in our personal space

News

60 Seconds

News

Space

Jellyfish galaxies may feed black holes with their long tendrils

News

Analysis

Google's logo

Humans

Memo to all tech bros: Sexism, not biology, holds women back

Women are not biologically predestined to be bit players in tech firms no matter what one (ex) Google engineer thinks of diversity programmes, says Lara Williams

News

Humans

Are atheists really morally depraved? The idea defies logic

News

Health

Why UK midwives are back-pedalling on natural childbirth

News

Life

Banking a baby's cord blood may save their life. Is it worth it?

News

Aperture

black balloon

Gas-filled black balloons create eerie floating worlds

THESE black balloons show just how easily scientific principles can be transformed into art. To create his work, Lithuanian artist Tadao Cern tied pairs of balloons together and filled them with gases of different densities. The ones floating at the top contain helium and the lower ones air. Each pair is sealed in a glass …

Regulars

Features

masked terrorist

Humans

Anatomy of terror: What makes normal people become extremists?

It takes more than religious fanaticism or hatred to make someone take innocent lives, but recognise the true roots of ISIS-inspired terror and they can be addressed

Features

Technology

Atomic Legoland: How to build wonder stuff from the atom up

Features

Humans

Meet the man giving people psychedelics for science

Features

Culture

eclipse

Space

America's total eclipse: The best guides to how to prepare

We have always hunted meaning in total eclipses. As the US prepares for a total eclipse, four new books tell us all about them and remind us to enjoy them too

Culture

Life

The porker paradox: A very human dilemma

Culture

More

diesel

The air we breathe

Engine exhaust is a major contributor to pollution in cities. But BASF's innovative engineering and clever catalytic chemistry is helping to produce cleaner air

basf

Space

Bringing the Royal Observatory at Greenwich back to life

Regulars

Regulars

cartoon superhero

Feedback: NASA seeks a planet-protecting superhero

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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