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This week's magazine

29 November 2014

Issue 2997

New Scientist issue 2997 cover
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Editor's picks

Chemical is not a dirty word

Environment

Chemical is not a dirty word

Opinion
Toxic shockers: Key chemicals to look out for

Health

Toxic shockers: Key chemicals to look out for

Features
Bone bonanza: Chamber of secrets yields human remains

Life

Bone bonanza: Chamber of secrets yields human remains

Features
Lassie text home: Pooches get technological

Technology

Lassie text home: Pooches get technological

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Chemical is not a dirty word

Environment

Chemical is not a dirty word

Synthetic chemicals must be safe as well as fit for purpose but they often don't deserve the bad press they receive. Time to reclaim the word

Opinion

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Humans needed barley to conquer Tibet's giddy heights

Earth

Humans needed barley to conquer Tibet's giddy heights

High-altitude essential It's known as the roof of the world. At altitudes of over 2.5 kilometres, the north-eastern Tibetan plateau proved daunting but irresistible terrain to ancient human societies. But it wasn't until they got their hands on frost-resistant barley that they could permanently settle these heady heights. Archaeological evidence, including handprints and footprints found at …

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Health

Watch a tapeworm squirm through a living man's brain

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Space

Galaxies in filaments spaced like pearls on a necklace

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Life

Saturn's calming nature keeps Earth friendly to life

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Life

Zoologger: tickly kiss turns on hairy-mouthed spiders

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Technology

Run your own experiment using CERN's public LHC data

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Opening the door to immigrants is good for the economy

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Earth

Robot subs find Antarctic sea ice thicker than expected

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Earth

Severe El Niño stunted Peruvian children's height

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Polish 'vampire' burials weren't just for outsiders

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Calorie-burning fat boosted by Chinese medicine plant

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Bubble physics explains beer's own anti-spill mechanism

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Technology

Free bitcoin for students: how will they spend it?

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Technology

One per cent

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Space

#Rosettawatch: homing in on Philae's resting spot

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Life

Wildlife trafficking is rife online in many countries

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Health

1004 travellers screened for Ebola on entry to the UK

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Technology

Sophisticated Regin spyware ‘built by nation state'

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60 Seconds

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Earth

Geoengineering the planet: first experiments take shape

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Quantum searching gets a software upgrade

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Life

First digital animal will be perfect copy of real worm

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Humans

How baby talk gives your child the best start in life

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Opinion

Total safety an illusion for Japan's nuclear restart

Earth

Total safety an illusion for Japan's nuclear restart

Some Japanese nuclear reactors, mothballed since the 2011 Tohoku quake, may soon restart. But nature can outpace new safety precautions, warns a geophysicist

Opinion

Space

I helped build Apollo and the shuttle – Orion is next

Opinion

Life

Most violence arises from morality, not the lack of it

Opinion

Analysis

Security savvy services beat online cyber spies

Technology

Security savvy services beat online cyber spies

Popular chat service WhatsApp has built end-to-end encryption into the latest Android version of its app. It's part of a growing trend to toughen up web security

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Technology

Drones do awkward dance to avoid crashing

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Space

Finding aliens harder now we know DNA survives space

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Life

Dog head-turning shows they do understand what you say

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Aperture

Strange love for cold-war-era slide rules

Earth

Strange love for cold-war-era slide rules

(Image: Oak Ridge Associated Universities) "WHAT type of people are fond of slide rules?" asks Paul Frame, newly retired from Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Tennessee. "Old folks. I didn't have an electronic calculator until I was a graduate student." Until the mid-1970s, Frame did most of his calculations with a slide rule. "Engineering students on …

Regulars

Features

Toxic shockers: Key chemicals to look out for

Health

Toxic shockers: Key chemicals to look out for

(Image: Mike Kemp/Getty) From BPA to burnt toast, pretty much everything in the modern world comes with a hidden cocktail of chemical extras. Get the facts on what to worry about TAKE a bite out of a fresh apple: there's nothing as healthy or natural. The problem is that science tells us otherwise: sensitive tests …

Features

Life

Bone bonanza: Chamber of secrets yields human remains

Features

Technology

Lassie text home: Pooches get technological

Features

Culturelab

Random no more: Evolution isn't down to chance alone

Life

Random no more: Evolution isn't down to chance alone

Arginine dream: how do amino acids turn into superstar proteins? (Image: David Parker/SPL) Where do evolution's adaptations come from? Arrival of the fittest by Andreas Wagner has some surprising answers EVOLUTION, we have always been told, results from natural selection sifting through countless random variations over millions of years. That's not good enough, says Andreas …

CultureLab

Life

Where am I in the world?

CultureLab

More

What's behind the snowmageddon that hit the US?

Earth

What's behind the snowmageddon that hit the US?

(Image: Lindsay DeDario/Reuters) Winter has come early to the US this year, with temperatures plunging below freezing across much of the continental US this week. Intense snowstorms dumped almost 2 metres of snow in a few places such as Buffalo in New York state (above), trapping people in cars and buses. So what has caused …

Regulars

Teenage girls rule themselves out of engineering careers

Careers

Regulars

Feedback: Now here was the news

Feedback: Now here was the news

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Now here was the news WITH typical topicality we turn up a message Lance Andrewes sent in January. It being about the "most read" section on the BBC News website , our delay is appropriate. When Lance looked, the second …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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