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This week's magazine

21 February 2015

Issue 3009

New Scientist issue 3009 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.

Earth

Chilling reminders of climate change in the Arctic

Opinion
Stunning fossils: Big Mama brooding

Life

Stunning fossils: Big Mama brooding

Features
Stunning fossils: Snake eating baby dinosaur

Life

Stunning fossils: Snake eating baby dinosaur

Features
Stunning fossils: Turtles caught in the act

Life

Stunning fossils: Turtles caught in the act

Features
Stunning fossils: Mother giving birth

Life

Stunning fossils: Mother giving birth

Features
Stunning fossils: The seven most amazing ever found

Life

Stunning fossils: The seven most amazing ever found

Features
Stunning fossils: Dinosaur death match

Life

Stunning fossils: Dinosaur death match

Features
Need for speed: Why computers stopped getting faster

Technology

Need for speed: Why computers stopped getting faster

Features
Stunning fossils: Fish catches fish-catching pterosaur

Life

Stunning fossils: Fish catches fish-catching pterosaur

Features
Stunning fossils: Sauropod flees for its life

Life

Stunning fossils: Sauropod flees for its life

Features
Brain boosting: It's not just grey matter that matters

Life

Brain boosting: It's not just grey matter that matters

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Online secrets market could revolutionise economies

Technology

Online secrets market could revolutionise economies

If you've never heard of Darkleaks, you soon will. But its technology, which began with bitcoin, could have far bigger implications

Opinion

Earth

Chilling reminders of climate change in the Arctic

Opinion

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Zoologger: Insect females hell-bent on wiping out males

Life

Zoologger: Insect females hell-bent on wiping out males

Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world

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Life

Sticky tape perfect for DIY nanotech to kill bacteria

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Mega-droughts predicted in the US will last decades

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Jurassic fossils reveal varied life of early mammals

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Interstellar's true black hole too confusing

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Common gum-disease bug may also give cancer a boost

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Orion has a giant dust hula hoop around its waist

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Penguins' sense of taste hobbled by their icy habitat

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Mystery cloud-like blobs over Mars baffle astronomers

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

First drone laws could trip up Amazon's delivery plans

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Digital judges to help settle disputes in online courts

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

People buy more stuff when they crave food

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Physics

Jostling photons could give dark matter away

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Chemical could replicate dieting's immune benefits

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Darkleaks lets anyone sell secrets for bitcoin

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Lasers set to zap engines into running more efficiently

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Beijing subway swipe data betrays social class

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

One Per Cent

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Baby slump puts Italy at risk of 'dying'

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Health

Buying pricey drugs harms more UK lives than it saves

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60 Seconds

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Health

Mutation order reveals what cancer will do next

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Life

Huge epigenomic map examines life's impact on our genes

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Health

Ebola outbreak still has things to teach us

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

How to predict what height meteors explode at

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Opinion

Official diet advice on fat stands, despite new study

Health

Official diet advice on fat stands, despite new study

Diets that are rich in fat can clog up the heart Claims that dietary fat guidelines in the US and UK were not based on good scientific evidence are misguided, says Christine Williams Yet again questions are being asked about the long-standing advice to avoid diets rich in fat, especially saturated fats . The latest …

Opinion

Health

We need to escape the whip of corporate wellness

Opinion

Earth

I'll fly around the world using only solar power

Opinion

Earth

Arctic biologist: I can't keep up with climate change

Opinion

Analysis

Contacting aliens: War of the worlds or war over cash?

Life

Contacting aliens: War of the worlds or war over cash?

(Image: NAIC – Arecibo Observatory/Wikimedia Commons) "It's not the Klingons you should be worried about, it's the Borg. We could take the Klingons." In a bar in San Jose, the beer flows and talk turns to the latest controversy from the SETI Institute, based just down the road in Mountain View. On Friday Doug Vakoch …

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Health

Campaigners split on ban of sex-based abortions

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Aperture

Tiny bat makes home in a carnivorous plant

Life

Tiny bat makes home in a carnivorous plant

(Images: Merlin Tuttle/Science Source) BATS roost in big groups in caves. Wrong! If you're a Hardwicke's woolly bat, you prefer to sleep in a more luxurious – and private – place. Kerivoula hardwickii roosts inside tropical pitcher plants. These carnivorous plants usually attract insects, but Nepenthes hemsleyana lacks the scents that others have, so few …

Regulars

Features

Stunning fossils: Big Mama brooding

Life

Stunning fossils: Big Mama brooding

Big Mama was brooding her eggs (Image: Mick Ellison/American Museum of Natural History) She was sitting on her nest keeping her eggs warm, just like modern birds do, when disaster struck Discovered: Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 1994 Age: 83 to 66 million years Location: Mongolian Dinosaur Museum The first oviraptor was discovered in Mongolia in 1922. …

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: Snake eating baby dinosaur

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: Turtles caught in the act

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: Mother giving birth

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: The seven most amazing ever found

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: Dinosaur death match

Features

Technology

Need for speed: Why computers stopped getting faster

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: Fish catches fish-catching pterosaur

Features

Life

Stunning fossils: Sauropod flees for its life

Features

Life

Brain boosting: It's not just grey matter that matters

Features

Culturelab

<i>A New History of Life</i> shows we're not extinction-proof

Life

A New History of Life shows we're not extinction-proof

Shark Bay, Australia: cyanobacteria help form modern stromatolites (Image: Frans Lanting/National Geographic Creative) Hubristic humans should heed the boom-and-bust vision of Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink's book, a grand synthesis of all that is known about evolution THE most brilliant innovation in the history of our planet was also the most catastrophic. Some 2.4 billion …

CultureLab

More

Our 2014 Pitch Us a Movie Competition winner

Our 2014 Pitch Us a Movie Competition winner

What might Europa look like in Matt Wilkinson's film? From alternate worlds, to physics gone bad and coexisting hominids, sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson had his work cut out judging this ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ competition A hearty thank you to the hundreds of readers who sent in their movie ideas for our 2014 Christmas competition. We …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Ferrari jumps the units shark

Environment

Feedback: Ferrari jumps the units shark

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Ferrari jumps the units shark FURTHER to Feedback's report on competition between the blue whale and the double-decker bus as metaphorical masses (14 February) , we delve into our piling system and wonder, not without pride, whether colleagues on other …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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