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This week's magazine

13 October 2012

Issue 2886

New Scientist issue 2886 cover
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Editor's picks

The surprise theory of everything

Physics

The surprise theory of everything

Features
The five most promising new cancer treatments

Health

The five most promising new cancer treatments

Features
Space tourism: the ultimate boarding pass

Space

Space tourism: the ultimate boarding pass

Features
Lethal weapons and the evolution of civilisation

Life

Lethal weapons and the evolution of civilisation

Features

Table of contents

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Quantum measurements leave Schrödinger's cat alive

Physics

Quantum measurements leave Schrödinger's cat alive

Just a peek Schrödinger's cat, the enduring icon of quantum mechanics, has been defied. By making constant but weak measurements of a quantum system, physicists have managed to probe a delicate quantum state without destroying it – the equivalent of taking a peek at Schrodinger's metaphorical cat without killing it. The result should make it …

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Earth

World's most northerly lake comes back to life

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Technology

Secure crypto-algorithm wins gold-standard status

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Life

Mouse eggs created from stem cells for the first time

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Life

Zoologger: The spiders hit by fatal courtship muddles

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Space

Astrophile: Supernova impostor explodes for real

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Space

Black-hole laser edges closer to testing Hawking

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Life

Cloning and stem cell Nobel for Gurdon and Yamanaka

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Space

SpaceX gets serious with first crucial supply mission

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Technology

Gesture-sensing interfaces to rival keyboards and mice

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Earth

European nuclear power plants ill-set for disaster

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Health

Meningitis outbreak sparks call for regulation

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Physics

Manipulators of quantum world win physics Nobel

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60 Seconds

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Earth

Hidden green benefits of genetically modified crops

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Earth

Climate war looms over US coal exports to China

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DNA's half-life identified using fossil bones

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Health

Oxytocin helps people with alcoholism beat cravings

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Star-shaped waves emerge from wobbly oil

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Technology

Tiny ruler is golden ticket to see diseases in action

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Technology

Neck implant eases chronic migraine

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Technology

First evidence for Iran's parallel halal internet

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Technology

Predictive text errors inspire AI comedians

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Earth

Hungry Africa's breadbasket needs to grow

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Health

Failed malaria drug regains its potency

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Technology

Robot learns using IKEA-style instructions

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Space

Exomoons may give us first glimpse of habitable worlds

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Technology

Ada Lovelace: My brain is more than merely mortal

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Opinion

Endangered animals caught in the tourist trap

Earth

Endangered animals caught in the tourist trap

Wildlife tourism generates conservation cash that many at-risk species now rely on to a startling degree. Curb it at their peril

Opinion

Earth

Future farms need to use every trick in the book

Opinion

Technology

Internet isolation isn't the way to go, Iran

Opinion

From sculpture to science: We can learn from art

Opinion

Analysis

Satellite broadband gets millions more Africans online

Technology

Satellite broadband gets millions more Africans online

The launch of a new satellite will provide broadband access for millions in Africa, without having to rely on fault-prone undersea cables

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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.

Scorpion raising: Nurtured under a deadly sting

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science WHAT'S not to love about this photo? In one fell swoop it inverts the reputation of a much-feared invertebrate. For the defenceless newborns sitting under the vicious sting are the scorpion's own …

Regulars

Features

The surprise theory of everything

Physics

The surprise theory of everything

(Images: Yosuke/Imagezoo/Getty Images) AS REVOLUTIONS go, its origins were haphazard. It was, according to the ringleader Max Planck, an "act of desperation". In 1900, he proposed the idea that energy comes in discrete chunks, or quanta, simply because the smooth delineations of classical physics could not explain the spectrum of energy re-radiated by an absorbing …

Features

Health

The five most promising new cancer treatments

Features

Space

Space tourism: the ultimate boarding pass

Features

Life

Lethal weapons and the evolution of civilisation

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.

Feeding the world will require tough choices

See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog

CultureLab

Earth 2.0: the hunt for places like home

CultureLab

Life

Sure, Darwin was clever, but…

CultureLab

Antony Gormley: I engineer experience

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 1719

Taking averages I have before me a pile of nine counters numbered one to nine. I take two counters from the pile and write down the average of the numbers made by arranging them in two ways, that is in their original order and reverse order. I then take a third counter from the pile …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: In fruitloopery's house are many mansions

Feedback: In fruitloopery's house are many mansions

In fruitloopery's house are many mansions "SOME of the notions that NES® is based on are quantum entanglement, information transfer and priority order..." Given that NES stands for Nutri-Energetics System®, can we guess what sort of stuff follows? Oh, yes, we can. "NES might be the first biotechnology that took into account the entanglement of …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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