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This week's magazine

5 November 2011

Issue 2837

New Scientist issue 2837 cover
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Editor's picks

Superconductors: Cold beginnings

Physics

Superconductors: Cold beginnings

Features
Superconductors: Getting warmer

Physics

Superconductors: Getting warmer

Features
Superconductors: What they're good for

Physics

Superconductors: What they're good for

Features
Superconductors: 100 years on

Physics

Superconductors: 100 years on

Features
Mental problems gave early humans an edge

Life

Mental problems gave early humans an edge

Features
The beetle plague devastating North America's forests

Earth

The beetle plague devastating North America's forests

Features
The underhand ape: Why corruption is normal

The underhand ape: Why corruption is normal

Features

Table of contents

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Dreams read by brain scanner for the first time

Life

Dreams read by brain scanner for the first time

Now we can recognise what's inside The secret world of dreams could soon be cracked open. Innovative neuroscientists have already begun to figure out the thoughts of awake people – now, a team reckon they can use similar methods to tap into dreams. To find out whether dreams could be read in the same way …

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Space

Shuttle's last spacewalker: 'Gravity is an option'

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Life

Zoologger: Slime killer hagfish feasts in rotten flesh

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Health

A shot of snake blood makes the heart grow

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Space

Most pristine known asteroid is denser than granite

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Health

Stem-cell find breathes new life into lung repair

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Space

Astrophile: Undead stars rise again as supernovae

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Life

Spider play sex isn't all fun and games

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Health

ADHD drugs do not cause sudden death

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Technology

World unites to discuss internet freedoms and dangers

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Space

China launches spacecraft to test automated docking

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Health

US drug shortages blamed on foreign suppliers

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Life

US to test anthrax vaccine in children... maybe

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Life

Sabre-toothed squirrel scurried at dinosaurs' feet

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Space

'Astronauts' to emerge from 520-day mock Mars mission

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Health

Everyday drugs could stop cancers before they hit

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Earth

Row over plans to mine Grand Canyon

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60 Seconds

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Earth

Visit to the coral gardeners' seabed lab

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Earth

Seaways across Antarctica could open in 1000 years

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Space

Most common stars are more life-friendly than thought

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Technology

Nuclear clock could steal atomic clock's crown

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Health

Green tea and red laser attack Alzheimer's plaques

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Earth

Trade war looms over Europe's aircraft carbon tax

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Life

Cat's eye irises don't need brain to adapt to the dark

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Health

Blood platelets get a new job: fighting invaders

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Technology

Casino cheats snared by smart camera system

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Technology

Artificial intelligence joins the fossil hunt

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Technology

Cotton transistors weave comfort into electronics

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Technology

Report questions long-term safety of composite planes

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Technology

Military robots can leave operators at home

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Space

Tough astronaut bugs to blast off for Martian moon

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Opinion

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.

Aspirin, the cancer wonder drug

If there was a daily pill you could take to reduce your risk of developing cancer, would you take it? At the very least, you would want to know the downside. Such a drug does exist, has few side effects, and can be purchased for peanuts in any pharmacy. That wonder drug is aspirin. Evidence …

Opinion

Beyond sanity and madness

Opinion

'Nudge' policies are another name for coercion

Opinion

Life

The origin of sex was interaction, not reproduction

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.

See gull take on eagle in mid-air piggyback attack

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science GULLS are utterly fearless, as shown by this remarkable image of a white-tailed eagle under attack. Herring gulls dive-bomb predatory birds at a steep angle from above and behind, as they make …

Regulars

Features

Superconductors: Cold beginnings

Physics

Superconductors: Cold beginnings

The Meissner effect is responsible for the incredible ability of superconductors to levitate above magnets - or indeed for magnets to levitate above superconductors. Read more: " Instant Expert: Superconductors " Exactly 100 years ago, a Dutch physicist called Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and his team made a remarkable and completely unexpected discovery. They found that …

Features

Physics

Superconductors: Getting warmer

Features

Physics

Superconductors: What they're good for

Features

Physics

Superconductors: 100 years on

Features

Life

Mental problems gave early humans an edge

Features

Earth

The beetle plague devastating North America's forests

Features

The underhand ape: Why corruption is normal

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.

So you want to design your baby?

Bart Fauser and Paul Devroey provide an authoritative tour of the intricacies, pitfalls and ethical labyrinths of assisted conception in Baby-Making THERE are few areas in medicine that strike such a chord as assisted reproduction, probably because so many of us have, at some time, engaged in the baby-making process, either through careful planning and …

CultureLab

A tour through our self-delusions

CultureLab

Quantum mechanics difficult to grasp? Too bad

CultureLab

The best science tattoos and the stories behind them

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 1671

Power Engineering Read from left to right, the different digits in the number ENIGMA are in descending order, and not necessarily consecutive. Given that E 6 + NI 3 + GMA 2 = EENNGG, find ENIGMA. WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 7 December. The …

Regulars

Switzerland's medtech prowess

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: Don't believe your eyes

Don't believe your eyes FIRST impressions can get things so wrong. Bruce Skinner tells us about a caravan parked on the edge of a public sporting ground just outside Adelaide, South Australia. In two lines of large letters on the side of the caravan were the words "ARKS, GARDENS & CREATION". Bruce's first thought was …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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