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This week's magazine

17 January 2015

Issue 3004

New Scientist issue 3004 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.

Technology

Free speech has to be for everyone, or not at all

Opinion
Reliving five eureka moments lost in history

Physics

Reliving five eureka moments lost in history

Features
Eureka relived: Rogue boiling points

Physics

Eureka relived: Rogue boiling points

Features
Eureka relived: Alchemy that's more than magic

Physics

Eureka relived: Alchemy that's more than magic

Features
Eureka relived: Gunpowder blasts from the past

Technology

Eureka relived: Gunpowder blasts from the past

Features
Eureka relived: Spark of genius proved truth of light

Physics

Eureka relived: Spark of genius proved truth of light

Features
Eureka relived: Wash like an Egyptian

Life

Eureka relived: Wash like an Egyptian

Features
Rite reasons: Why your brain loves pointless rituals

Life

Rite reasons: Why your brain loves pointless rituals

Features
Adapt first, mutate later: Is evolution out of order?

Life

Adapt first, mutate later: Is evolution out of order?

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Pope's impending call for climate action is refreshing

Earth

Pope's impending call for climate action is refreshing

(Image: Galileo before the Roman Inquisition , 1857 (oil on canvas), Cristiano Banti (1824-1904)/private collection/De Agostini Picture Library/U. Marzani/Bridgeman Images) It's gratifying that the Catholic church is backing scientists on the issue of climate change – now if only it would heed the evidence on other issues, too WHEN talk turns to the church's relationship …

Opinion

Technology

Free speech has to be for everyone, or not at all

Opinion

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Mercury may be sole survivor of planetary pile-up

Space

Mercury may be sole survivor of planetary pile-up

Oddball planet: Mercury is a rank outsider in our solar system The inner solar system may once have been a crowded and violent place – and Mercury its lone survivor. A new model suggests that most young planetary systems start with several close-in, rocky planets, which later destroy each other in a cascade of collisions. …

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Health

Fully functioning human intestine grown in mouse

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Life

Female ejaculation comes in two forms, scientists find

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Earth

Huge circle in Antarctic ice hints at meteorite impact

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Life

Uber-tidy bees defend their hives from disease

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Space

SpaceX rocket crashes in first attempted boat landing

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Technology

Pay a robot scribe to pen letters in your handwriting

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Life

Human brains have a groovy feature that chimps' don't

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Life

Aphids suck the blood of their ant masters' young

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Technology

Chemical weapons sniffed quickly by zappy detector

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Technology

Romance algorithm predicts if you'll be lucky in love

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Health

Expensive cancer drugs pushed off England's NHS list

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Earth

Space weather report to keep GPS on track

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Technology

Focus on surveillance as US military's tweets hacked

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Life

Lizard penises evolve super-fast

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Health

Long hours make people more likely to drink heavily

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Technology

World's biggest magnet to power Indian neutrino hunter

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Technology

Big science names sign open letter detailing AI danger

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60 Seconds

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Space

Galactic zombies roam the cosmos and refuse to die

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Life

Rome's military women have been hiding in plain sight

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Earth

Keystone XL pipeline inches closer – but may yet fail

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Health

Brain signature of emotion-linked pain is uncovered

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Technology

Software can now beat any human player at poker

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Opinion

You think there's a multiverse? Get real

Space

You think there's a multiverse? Get real

Positing that alternative universes exist is just disguising our lack of knowledge of the cosmos. It's time to move on, says physicist Lee Smolin

Opinion

Earth

Over a barrel? Falling oil prices and the environment

Opinion

Technology

Forget grown-ups: apps can let kids teach themselves

Opinion

Analysis

Pope to make moral case for action on climate change

Earth

Pope to make moral case for action on climate change

A moral stance could just be a hit COULD one man succeed in spurring decisive action on global warming? Pope Francis , leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, plans to release a ground-breaking appeal to combat climate change, in a major document called an encyclical. Its message will be spread to congregations around the …

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Aperture

A drowned town has resurfaced – population one

Earth

A drowned town has resurfaced – population one

(Image: AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) THIS photo first made me think of the desolation of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. Then, seeing the woman walking through the ruins of her former home town, it made me think of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road , set in a post-apocalyptic North America. What disaster has befallen this place? …

Regulars

Features

Reliving five eureka moments lost in history

Physics

Reliving five eureka moments lost in history

Recreating the past (Image: Collage: Michelle Thompson. photographs: De Agostini/G. Dagli Orti/Getty, Superstock) Water doesn't just boil at 100 °C and chemistry owes a lot to alchemy: recreating long-forgotten experiments provides surprising insights into today's science SCIENCE is a forward-thinking sort of discipline. While displaying due reverence for the great achievements of its past, it …

Features

Physics

Eureka relived: Rogue boiling points

Features

Physics

Eureka relived: Alchemy that's more than magic

Features

Technology

Eureka relived: Gunpowder blasts from the past

Features

Physics

Eureka relived: Spark of genius proved truth of light

Features

Life

Eureka relived: Wash like an Egyptian

Features

Life

Rite reasons: Why your brain loves pointless rituals

Features

Life

Adapt first, mutate later: Is evolution out of order?

Features

Culturelab

Can bitcoin outgun the abuses of big data?

Technology

Can bitcoin outgun the abuses of big data?

Nothing is sacred for retailers mining your every purchase (Image: Kirk Mastin/Getty) If bitcoin-like currencies take off, might people power stop big firms from invading our privacy? A bold thought from crashing together two new books AS THE second biggest discount retailer in the US, Target has more than 100 million customers. Each is assigned …

CultureLab

Life

How fudged embryo illustrations led to drawn-out lies

CultureLab

Regulars

Feedback: Words for worthless whatsits

Feedback: Words for worthless whatsits

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Words for worthless whatsits FEEDBACK was not aware that any other language had a synonym for the Yiddish tchotchke , "a trinket of no discernible function" (13 December 2014) . So we are pleasantly surprised by the number of suggestions. …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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