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This week's magazine

20 August 2011

Issue 2826

New Scientist issue 2826 cover
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Editor's picks

Crittervision: See like a bee

Life

Crittervision: See like a bee

Features
Crittervision: Turtles surf the magnetic ocean

Life

Crittervision: Turtles surf the magnetic ocean

Features
Crittervision: Enter the bat's world of sound

Life

Crittervision: Enter the bat's world of sound

Features
Crittervision: What a dog's nose knows

Crittervision: What a dog's nose knows

Features
Crittervision: Heat-seeking snakes

Life

Crittervision: Heat-seeking snakes

Features
Really dark matter: Is the universe made of holes?

Space

Really dark matter: Is the universe made of holes?

Features
Learning machines: The education of an animat

Technology

Learning machines: The education of an animat

Features
Germ detectors: Unmasking our microbial foes

Technology

Germ detectors: Unmasking our microbial foes

Features

Table of contents

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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.

Health

Artificial anal sphincter could limit bowel incontinence

Another milestone for custom-crafted transplants : the world's first lab-built sphincters. The breakthrough offers hope to countless people who have become incontinent through damage to their own anal sphincters. The spare-part sphincters were made with some human cells, but have been implanted only in mice so far. Researchers made them by growing donated smooth muscle …

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Life

Plesiosaurs gave birth to big babies

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Technology

Electronic 'tattoos' to monitor vital signs

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Health

Experimental drug could defeat any virus

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Health

Brain cells protect themselves against stroke

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Earth

Biggest UK oil spill for 10 years

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Life

Riot-ology: can science explain why riots spread?

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Life

US debates an end to medical research on chimps

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Extreme US weather: La Niña or constipated jet stream?

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Rapid Arctic ice melt: humans and nature share blame

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Earth

Famine-struck Somalia faces cholera outbreak

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Health

Autism risk rises for siblings of autistic children

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60 Seconds

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Life

Reverse evolution: Chicken revisits its dinosaur past

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Life

Natural brain state is primed to learn

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Physics

Bendy 'plasmon' beams focus better than light alone

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Life

RoboBee speaks honeybee dance language

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Technology

Internet databases reveal new uses for old drugs

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Physics

Lottery wins come easy, if you can spot the loopholes

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Earth

Warning: Killer fungi could run amok again

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Space

Moon may be 200 million years younger than thought

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Life

Penguins don't freeze, but they do get very, very cold

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Physics

Need to block a coffee ring? Send in the torpedoes

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Earth

Foamy wakes cool the world, ships don't

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Space

Black holes and pulsars could reveal extra dimensions

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Technology

Face recognition technology fails to find UK rioters

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Life

Nature's unruly patterns unlocked with AI

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Space

Space entrepreneurs may hold fate of ISS

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Technology

Hirsute wetsuit lets swimmers go with the flow

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Life

Brain's synaptic pruning continues into your 20s

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Opinion

RIP shuttle – let's get back to real space exploration

Space

RIP shuttle – let's get back to real space exploration

Time to look further afield Time to ditch the black armbands and look beyond low Earth orbit again. The shuttle's passing marks the start of an exciting new era AND then there were none. A profound feeling of emptiness struck many space aficionados in the US and beyond last month after Atlantis touched down for …

Opinion

Health

Alternative medicine investigator: Placebos and platitudes

Opinion

Technology

Game developer: Beware algorithms running your life

Opinion

Medicine should embrace diagnostic technology

Opinion

No need to fear rewinding evolution

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.

Microkillers: A gallery of pestilence

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science THEY are microscopic, beautiful and deadly too. Organisms responsible for the demise of millions of people down the generations have been turned into art. This gallery of pestilence – smallpox, plague, anthrax, …

Regulars

Features

Crittervision: See like a bee

Life

Crittervision: See like a bee

Bees see in UV Read more: " Crittervision: The world as animals see (and sniff) it " When a bee flies into your garden, it doesn't see what you and I see. Flowers leap out from much darker-looking leafy backgrounds, and they have ultraviolet-reflecting landing strips that show the way to the nectar. Some spiders …

Features

Life

Crittervision: Turtles surf the magnetic ocean

Features

Life

Crittervision: Enter the bat's world of sound

Features

Crittervision: What a dog's nose knows

Features

Life

Crittervision: Heat-seeking snakes

Features

Space

Really dark matter: Is the universe made of holes?

Features

Technology

Learning machines: The education of an animat

Features

Technology

Germ detectors: Unmasking our microbial foes

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 sounds of movement

In Harnessed , cognitive psychologist Mark Changizi suggests that language – and music – evolved to make use of our brain's pre-existing processing skills HUMANS are very good at language. Computers are just beginning to cope with the complexities of speech, but almost every child masters language easily. This remarkable talent has led some anthropologists …

CultureLab

The rise of the 150-year-olds?

CultureLab

A pair of maverick physicists

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 1660

Three dozen We have been playing our family board game again, where we use a board of 100 spaces numbered 0 to 99. A player starts with his counter on 0, throws a die, and moves forward the number of spaces shown. If he lands on a space marked with a square number he moves …

Regulars

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: Bottled bull

Bottled bull QUACKS selling "curative" water tend to claim it has any or all of three amazing qualities – and the alkaline water that Mark Dodds and Eddy van Zimmer found promoted by Life Ionizers at bit.ly/sillywater advances all three (30 July) in spoonfuls. The first is that it can apparently "neutralize the acidity of …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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