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This week's magazine

6 August 2011

Issue 2824

New Scientist issue 2824 cover
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Editor's picks

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space

Space

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space

Features
Tubular hell: Taking the sizzle out of the subway

Technology

Tubular hell: Taking the sizzle out of the subway

Features
The end of ageing: Why life begins at 90

Life

The end of ageing: Why life begins at 90

Features
Selfless evolution: An idea rejected

Selfless evolution: An idea rejected

Features
Selfless evolution: An idea revived

Selfless evolution: An idea revived

Features
Selfless evolution: A new view of human origins

Selfless evolution: A new view of human origins

Features
Selfless evolution: A new consensus

Selfless evolution: A new consensus

Features

Table of contents

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Cuban flowers rely on bat signal for survival

Life

Cuban flowers rely on bat signal for survival

Come in, please Gotham City famously relies on a bat signal to call for help. In the rainforests of Cuba grows a flower with its own version – a device that is vital for the flower's survival. The rainforest vine Marcgravia evenia has an unusual anatomy. It has a disc-shaped leaf suspended above a ring …

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Life

Industrial revolution sealed Neanderthals' fate

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Health

Gastric bypass creates a healthier appetite

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Life

Superbugs may be here to stay

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Health

Colon cleansing health benefits debunked

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Technology

Car braking system taps directly into the brain

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Health

Live disc implant could kill back pain

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Space

Close-ups of Vesta, our second-heaviest asteroid

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Earth

Mob move into organised wildlife crime

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Life

Breast cancer gene patent reinstated

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Life

Killer rat daubs fur with poison-arrow plant toxins

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Health

Homophobia stymies HIV fight in Islamic countries

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Life

Free contraception for US women

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Tropical storm blunts Gulf of Mexico dead zone

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Foxconn aims for a million robot workers by 2014

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60 Seconds

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Health

Citizen scientists eat worms to treat disorders

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Earth

Can spotting dead polar bears add up to misconduct?

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Earth

Thank climate change for the rise of humans

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Space

Second moon's remains may cover lunar far side

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Earth

Iron-rich dust fuelled 4 million years of ice ages

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Physics

Modern alchemy turns acid boron into a base

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Life

Heat-seeking vampire bats have a trick in their pits

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Life

Picking flowers in dinosaur-aged mud

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Space

Antiproton ring found around Earth

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Health

Mathematical model predicts growth of cancer

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Physics

Water molecule held in solitary confinement

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Moon-showers give Saturn an aquatic belt

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Earth

Black gold holds a charge for green cars

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Technology

One day in the robot house

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Technology

Smart software spots swaying risk of a crushing crowd

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Technology

Taser under fire after teenager's death

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Technology

Crisis robots show people to emergency exits

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Opinion

Australia's overheated climate debate

Earth

Australia's overheated climate debate

Overshadowing the science Climate-change wrangling in Australia has descended into death threats and extreme insults. The science is being drowned out THE battle over global warming, reaching fever pitch in Australia amid plans to introduce a carbon tax, is part of a long-running and bitter culture war between conservatives and liberals dating from the 1960s. …

Opinion

Life

Shark researcher: A great white landed in my boat

Opinion

Life

Somali archaeologist: We need culture in a time of war

Opinion

Let them eat worms

Opinion

The cooling power of dust

Opinion

Aperture

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.

Mighty Mars rover on the blocks

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science IN THE 50 years since NASA unveiled the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, it has been used to build missions to the moon, Venus and Mars. …

Regulars

Features

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space

Space

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space

Does some deeper level of reality lurk beneath? A theory of reality beyond Einstein's universe is taking shape – and a mysterious cosmic signal could soon fill in the blanks IT WASN'T so long ago we thought space and time were the absolute and unchanging scaffolding of the universe. Then along came Albert Einstein, who …

Features

Technology

Tubular hell: Taking the sizzle out of the subway

Features

Life

The end of ageing: Why life begins at 90

Features

Selfless evolution: An idea rejected

Features

Selfless evolution: An idea revived

Features

Selfless evolution: A new view of human origins

Features

Selfless evolution: A new consensus

Features

Culturelab

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.

The ecological legacy of Columbus

In his new book, 1493 , Charles Mann examines how colonisation of the Americas irrevocably altered our global ecology GLOBALISATION is seen as a modern state of the world resulting from air travel and free trade. In 1493 Charles Mann shows this is not so – we have been interconnected for a very long time …

CultureLab

The art of displaying dead animals

CultureLab

Basics and batik of climate change

CultureLab

Bringing the lab to the streets

CultureLab

Can design evolve the same way humans do?

CultureLab

More

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.

Enigma Number 1658

Seven into five ENIGMA is a number in which the letters denote different digits. The numbers corresponding to IN, GIN, GAIN, GAMMA and ENIGMA, in which there are no leading zeroes, are divided by 7 and each has remainder I (I as in Ink). Find the maximum value ENIGMA can take. WIN £15 will be …

Regulars

How to go really green in the city

Careers

Regulars

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.

Feedback: Ancient of cars

Ancient of cars FEEDBACK feels the need to launch the Society for the Promotion of Numerate Proofreading (SPNP). Clearly, a scientist who quickly skims a paper, skipping the equations, knows she is going to have to go back and read it properly. The temptation for a proofreader to check the words but skip the funny …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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