This week's magazine

Table of contents

Leaders

Health

Human hibernation sounds fanciful, but it may now be saving lives

Trials involving swapping blood for cold saline show that exploring extraordinary ideas can lead to incredible benefits for human health

News

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News

Mathematics

DeepMind AI finds new way to multiply numbers and speed up computers

Matrix multiplication - where two grids of numbers are multiplied together - forms the basis of many computing tasks, and an improved technique discovered by an artificial intelligence could boost computation speeds by up to 20 per cent

News

Humans

Our ancestors’ prenatal growth sped up after we split from chimps

News

Mind

Learning to play an instrument could boost your short-term memory

News

Environment

Megadrought could become the new normal in the south-western US

News

Environment

What’s causing a mass die-off of crabs on the UK coast?

News

Health

International rugby union players face higher risk of dementia

News

Life

Experiments hint at how molecules essential to all life first arose

News

Space

Lava erupting on Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io is over 1000°C

News

Space

Space adverts are now economically viable but potentially dangerous

News

Environment

Sydney has wettest year on record with 2.2 metres of rain in 279 days

News

Health

Smoking and body mass are together linked to 226 medical conditions

News

Health

Monkeypox: A dangerous variant circulating in the DRC could go global

News

New Scientist Live

9 surprising things we learned at New Scientist Live 2022

News

Life

Monkeys and lemurs are coming down from the trees as climate warms up

News

Environment

Intensive farming of cleared land could save rest of Amazon rainforest

News

Environment

Extreme weather threat to energy security is as serious as Ukraine war

News

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Analysis

Environment

Can Britain avoid winter blackouts amid the European energy crisis?

If the electricity supply from the continent ceases, households in England, Scotland and Wales may need to ration their own power use at peak times to keep the lights on

News

Technology

Boston Dynamics leads call to stop arming robots – will anyone listen?

News

Technology

Brain training apps claim to make us smarter, but there is no evidence

News

Technology

The success of text-to-image AIs raises major ethical issues

Comment

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Aperture

New Scientist Live

New Scientist Live: Photographs from the show floor

New Scientist's flagship event returns after a pandemic-induced hiatus. Here is our pick of the show, from a robot dog to Astronomer Royal Martin Rees telling us how science will save the world

Regulars

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Features

Mind

How curiosity can supercharge your brain and boost your success

Curiosity can boost memory and creativity for sharper thinking, yet it can also lead to distraction and procrastination. The trick is to know when and how to use it

Features

Physics

Carlo Rovelli on the bizarre world of relational quantum mechanics

Features

Health

Human hibernation is a real possibility - this is how it might work

Features

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Culture

Technology

Hardspace: Shipbreaker review: strip spacecraft for parts in orbit

This video game lets you work as a salvager in low Earth orbit. Essentially, it is like building a Lego set in reverse, and, like Lego, it is a very satisfying experience, finds Jacob Aron

Culture

Health

The Long Covid Handbook review: Examining a debilitating condition

Culture

Humans

Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness review: Complex and engaging

Culture

Humans

Don't Miss: In Plain Sight, an exhibition about visual perception

Culture

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More

Humans

Why I am keen to get my hands on genetically modified purple tomatoes

The first home-grown genetically modified food may be on the horizon, in the form of purple tomatoes, finds Clare Wilson

Regulars

Puzzle #189: Can you work out what the time was?

Regulars

Tom Gauld on overthinking

Regulars

Twisteddoodles on system updates

Regulars

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Regulars

On smoking, tea drinking and "mental activities after dinner"

Feedback explores a key new study looking at tea-drinking smokers and their postprandial sprightliness, while also investigating the prospects of entomologically fortified butter

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word