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This week's magazine

3 May 2014

Issue 2967

New Scientist issue 2967 cover
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Editor's picks

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.

Stem cell revival: The 1990s are back

Opinion
Losing our religion: Your guide to a godless future

Life

Losing our religion: Your guide to a godless future

Features
Bird brainiacs: The genius of pigeons

Life

Bird brainiacs: The genius of pigeons

Features
Survival of the fattest: Why we're wrong about obesity

Life

Survival of the fattest: Why we're wrong about obesity

Features
The mirror crack'd: Why physics is lopsided

Life

The mirror crack'd: Why physics is lopsided

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

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.

Life

God not-botherers: Religious apathy reigns

Across the developed world, people are losing interest in god without becoming atheists. That's a good thing

Opinion

Stem cell revival: The 1990s are back

Opinion

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Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of life

Life

Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of life

Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper reached the ripe old age of 115 Death is the one certainty in life – a pioneering analysis of blood from one of the world's oldest and healthiest women has given clues to why it happens. Born in 1890, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper was at one point the oldest woman in the world. …

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Health

Induced hallucination turns doctors into pizza chefs

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Space

Supernova found aligned with galactic magnifying glass

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Space

Sun 'smoke rings' give clue to solar wind mystery

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Space

Canada uses satellite to scold Russia over Ukraine

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Life

Spark of life: Metabolism appears in lab without cells

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Life

Insulin-making cells created by Dolly-cloning method

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Technology

Watson in your pocket: Supercomputer gets own apps

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Life

Scent of a man: Male sweat stresses out lab mice

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Health

Pharma megadeals do nothing for neglected medicines

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Health

US death penalty practices raise disturbing questions

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Space

Epic Mars flooding triggered by collapsed crater lake

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SpaceX to sue US air force for rocket rights

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60 Seconds

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Earth

Why did evolution stall during the 'boring billion'?

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Space

Sun's fractal surprise could help fusion on Earth

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Stone Age DNA shows hunter-gatherers shunned farming

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Technology

Sun-focusing satellite dish heats water on your roof

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Life

The bacteria that chat back and tell you how they are

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Health

Fibre sends appetite-suppressing molecule to the brain

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Technology

Cyborg angst: 5 ways computers will perplex us in 2039

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Life

Jurassic predator had surprisingly sensitive snout

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Earth

Satellite maps can't measure carbon stored in forests

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Life

Captive lions risk brain damage from deformed skulls

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Space

Turbulent black holes grow fractal skins as they feed

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Opinion

Killing animals is a necessary evil for natural history

Life

Killing animals is a necessary evil for natural history

A lot of research relies on the collection of wild specimens. Curbing the practice could hamper science, says an entomologist and museum director

Opinion

Earth

Bat man and Putin: In exile for fighting for wildlife

Opinion

Space

Forget dark matter – embrace my MOND theory instead

Opinion

Analysis

All-electric plane heralds future of green aviation

Technology

All-electric plane heralds future of green aviation

Video: Electric plane completes test flight Battery powered LAST week, an electric-powered light aircraft took to the skies over the vineyards of Bordeaux, France. It was only a small, two-seater plane but the technologies that made the flight possible could lead to a new class of hybrid airliners. One day, the plane you board to …

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Aperture

Peek inside a Russian cosmonaut's dressing room

Space

Peek inside a Russian cosmonaut's dressing room

(Image: Edgar Martins) ALL important people have dressing rooms. This is the one for Russian cosmonauts. It's based at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside Moscow. As might be expected from something that dates back to the Soviet space programme, the dressing room itself isn't terribly high-tech. "It's a fairly nondescript …

Regulars

Features

Losing our religion: Your guide to a godless future

Life

Losing our religion: Your guide to a godless future

The human mind is primed to believe in god, so why are so many people abandoning religion – and should we be worried about living in an atheist world?

Features

Life

Bird brainiacs: The genius of pigeons

Features

Life

Survival of the fattest: Why we're wrong about obesity

Features

Life

The mirror crack'd: Why physics is lopsided

Features

Culturelab

In the beginning: The story of the embryo

Life

In the beginning: The story of the embryo

Science should call the shots when it comes to policy about embryos (Image: Dr Gopal Murti/SPL) The embryo was little more than a hypothesis until the microscope came along. Jane Maienschien explores early life in Embryos Under the Microscope CONSIDER the embryo. The most likely thing to spring to mind will be a pink, prawn-like …

CultureLab

Earth

No man's lands: A cabinet of geographical curiosities

CultureLab

More

Warhol's digital soup cans discovered on old floppies

Warhol's digital soup cans discovered on old floppies

(Image: Andy Warhol, Campbell's, 1985, ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visuals Arts, Inc., courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum) A university computer club has rediscovered digital art created by Andy Warhol on an Amiga computer in 1985, including this version of his iconic Campbell's soup cans . The group from the Carnegie Mellon University …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Papering over a problem

Feedback: Papering over a problem

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Papering over a problem... INCREDULITY was several readers' response to the estimate in our special on materialism that US residents each use 1.3 million sheets of toilet paper during their lives (29 March, p 36). James Ferguson found the figure …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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