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This week's magazine

20 September 2014

Issue 2987

New Scientist issue 2987 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.

Health

Too early to worry about health effects of sweeteners

Opinion
Strangest star: 6 things we didn't know about the sun

Space

Strangest star: 6 things we didn't know about the sun

Features
Daydream believers: Is imagination our greatest skill?

Life

Daydream believers: Is imagination our greatest skill?

Features
Possessed! The powerful aliens that lurk within you

Life

Possessed! The powerful aliens that lurk within you

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Three-parent babies: It's more messy than we thought

Life

Three-parent babies: It's more messy than we thought

Mitochondrial replacement lets a child's cells use power packs from a donor. But if the donor can pass on other traits, that really complicates the ethics

Opinion

Health

Too early to worry about health effects of sweeteners

Opinion

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Your shopping comes from illegally deforested land

Earth

Your shopping comes from illegally deforested land

Palm oil comes first Every time we go shopping we fill our trolleys with contraband without knowing it. It turns out that commercial plantation owners and food companies are the worst offenders at illegally cutting down the rainforest. These are the same firms that fill our supermarket shelves with everything from beef and biscuits to …

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Technology

Springy ceramics bounce back when squeezed

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Life

Biggest hunting dinosaur was an aquatic shark-gobbler

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Life

Sleeping brains can process and respond to words

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Technology

Curtain closing on Higgs boson photon soap opera

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Earth

Urban wastelands worth millions for what they give us

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Health

Brains can power up to get around Alzheimer's plaques

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Space

Rosetta: landing site chosen for first comet mission

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Earth

Go low-carbon for the money, says high-profile report

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Life

Human 'language gene' makes mice smarter

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Health

Simple urine test detects cervical cancer virus

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Health

Stem cells used in landmark therapy for failing sight

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Earth

Record sea ice around Antarctica due to global warming

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Earth

China clamps down on dirtiest coal to curb pollution

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Health

World closes in on goal of halving hunger by 2015

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Environment

60 Seconds

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Health

Artificial sweeteners linked to glucose intolerance

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Life

Chances of first life improved by weighted dice

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Life

Primal pull of a baby crying reaches across species

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Technology

US opens 'drone zones' for a year of pioneer testing

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Technology

Video chat in US jail shelved over concerns for inmates

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Technology

Gaze-tracker lets you connect to devices with a glance

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Earth

Leaky wells, not fracking, polluted US drinking water

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Technology

Lasers slim down on stopped-light diet

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Technology

Quantum internet could keep us safe from spying eyes

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Technology

iPhone eye test spots vision problems cheaply

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Opinion

The woman who saved Mongolia's stolen dinosaurs

Life

The woman who saved Mongolia's stolen dinosaurs

Though illegal for more than a century, looting Mongolian dinosaur fossils was commonplace – until culture minister Oyungerel Tsedevdamba stepped in

Opinion

Gender bias has no place in the British army

Opinion

I'm reverse-engineering Mesopotamian hit songs

Opinion

Analysis

Space station is safe from US-Russia squabbles

Space station is safe from US-Russia squabbles

We come in peace TROUBLE below may not mean trouble above. While Russia's relationship with the rest of the world has been rocky since it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in the spring, experts say the International Space Station, at least, may be untouched. Space is hardly the most pressing consequence of Russia's actions in Crimea, …

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Technology

Apple's smart watch could have us all self-monitoring

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Aperture

Meet the ancient megatrees of arid lands

Life

Meet the ancient megatrees of arid lands

(Images: Elaine Ling ) THE devil upended the baobab and planted it upside down. So says Arab legend. In Burkino Faso and Tanzania, folklore has it that the tree wouldn't stop walking, so God planted it with root-feet in the air and branches underground. A Zimbabwean version has it that God inverted the tree in …

Regulars

Features

Daydream believers: Is imagination our greatest skill?

Life

Daydream believers: Is imagination our greatest skill?

Video: Testing a child's imagination Our capacity to create imaginary worlds could be key to our health as well as the power behind the rise of human civilisation IT WAS during the Abix-Rontu war for control of the solar system that the planets Rorkak and Slockland were formed. The war had erupted when two 6-year-old …

Features

Life

Possessed! The powerful aliens that lurk within you

Features

Space

Strangest star: 6 things we didn't know about the sun

Features

Culturelab

Was Aristotle the inventor of science?

Was Aristotle the inventor of science?

Today's biologists think like Aristotle (Image: Prisma/UIG/Getty Images) The ancient Greek philosopher deserves our homage, and Armand Marie Leroi delivers it in his edifying and excellent book EVERY generation of biologist must rediscover Aristotle for itself, to paraphrase Armand Leroi in a BBC documentary, Aristotle's Lagoon . Four years on, Leroi, a biologist at Imperial …

CultureLab

Life

The creepy crawly story of life on Earth

CultureLab

Life

A paean to plants: The story of botany at Kew gardens

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Who could like weird science?

Feedback: Who could like weird science?

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Who could like weird science? WHAT products, Feedback asked, "might contain, and proudly proclaim, 'weird science'?" Opening a message from Brian Burbage, we realised we'd rather set ourselves a trap. The term "weird science", he writes, "could be used to …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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