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This week's magazine

3 October 2015

Issue 3041

New Scientist issue 3041 cover
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Editor's picks

Forget trying to be normal, we should nurture our diversity

Life

Forget trying to be normal, we should nurture our diversity

Opinion
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

5 building blocks of everyday thinking

Features
Are your obsessions normal?

Life

Are your obsessions normal?

Features
Are the voices in your head normal?

Life

Are the voices in your head normal?

Features
Fall of fall: The mellow season of autumn is changing forever

Earth

Fall of fall: The mellow season of autumn is changing forever

Features
Are your beliefs normal?

Humans

Are your beliefs normal?

Features
Are your emotions normal?

Life

Are your emotions normal?

Features
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.

Physics

How to measure anything – and fix the foundations of science

Features
New Scientist logo

Life

Is your attention span normal?

Features
Is your memory normal?

Life

Is your memory normal?

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.

Physics

The mismeasure of metrology

IF YOU can't measure it, you can't manage it. That dictum runs through our society, from public health to education. It applies especially to science. Innumerable experiments conducted every day depend on precise measurements that ultimately rest on just a handful of standard units. These are now specified with astounding precision, but those charged with …

Opinion

Life

Forget trying to be normal, we should nurture our diversity

Opinion

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Painting bot follows your eyes to create art

Technology

Painting bot follows your eyes to create art

Video: Painting robot follows your eyes to create art It's no Picasso, but it's a start. A robotic arm that can be controlled with your eyes has just painted its first picture: a simple image of a house, grass and the sun. Developed by Aldo Faisal of Imperial College London and his team, the system …

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Technology

Why US talks will not be enough to make China ditch cyberwar

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Life

Activist bots recruit humans to their cause on Twitter

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Earth

Earthquake artificial intelligence knows where damage is worst

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Physics of falling says professional athletes are running wrong

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How the local yeasts can affect the flavour and aroma of wine

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Zoologger: The only raptor known to hunt in cooperative packs

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Mind

Paralysed man uses mind control to walk again

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Rosettawatch: Onion layers prove 67P is a slow-mo comet mash-up

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America's oldest decapitated head reveals strange burial ritual

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Invasive herb could hamper East Africa's fight against malaria

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Surgical device repairs damaged still-beating heart with glue

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Floods that hit New York City every 500 years now hit every 24

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Genes protecting smokers' health one of many UK Biobank findings

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DNA-cutting enzymes could slice through gene editing patent spat

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Salty water seen flowing on Mars, not far from Curiosity rover

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Crowds beat computers in answer to Wikipedia-sized maths problem

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Why lack of sleep makes us emotionally distracted by everything

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Deepest earthquakes seem to be seasonal but we don't know why

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Life

Moss on Mars? Plant species being cultivated for astronaut drugs

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How did Volkswagen cheat in tests and can it fix affected cars?

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Technology

VW emissions fraud tallies with Europe's pollution overshoots

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Ears of early humans could hear frequencies used in speech

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Space

Multiverses-in-a-box let us simulate the cosmos before we see it

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60 Seconds

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Shell abandons oil exploration in Alaska but stays in the Arctic

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Environment

Plastic in the food chain: Artificial debris found in fish

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Opinion

As tech threatens jobs, we must test a universal basic income

Technology

As tech threatens jobs, we must test a universal basic income

Paying a basic wage to all could hold society together if automation destroys swathes of work, but we need more trials to be sure

Opinion

Physics

Probability is as useful to physics as flat-Earth theory

Opinion

Health

Pay people a living wage and watch them get healthier

Opinion

Health

Why I study 80-year-old smokers

Opinion

Aperture

The Large Magellanic Cloud, if van Gogh had painted it

Space

The Large Magellanic Cloud, if van Gogh had painted it

(Image: ESA and the Planck Collaboration) IT LOOKS like a detail in Van Gogh's famous painting Cafe Terrace at Night . But glowing in the centre of this image is the Large Magellanic Cloud – one of our galaxy's nearest neighbours, a mere 160,000 light years from Earth. With a mass about 10 billion times …

Regulars

Features

Are your obsessions normal?

Life

Are your obsessions normal?

Pleasures of the flesh often pop up unprompted in our thoughts (Image: Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos) No one knows where the "men think about sex every 7 seconds" rumour comes from, but it's almost certainly untrue. In 2012, Terri Fisher of Ohio State University in Columbus armed three groups of students with clickers and asked them …

Features

Life

Are the voices in your head normal?

Features

Humans

Are your beliefs normal?

Features

Life

Are your emotions normal?

Features

Life

Is your attention span normal?

Features

Life

Is your memory normal?

Features

Earth

Fall of fall: The mellow season of autumn is changing forever

Features

Physics

How to measure anything – and fix the foundations of science

Features

Life

5 building blocks of everyday thinking

Features

Culturelab

Capturing NASA's mindset is key to The Martian’s success

Space

Capturing NASA's mindset is key to The Martian’s success

Ridley Scott's new film is not only a love letter to science, but an entertaining depiction of a way to survive in extreme circumstances

CultureLab

Earth

Why the struggle for water is a global issue

CultureLab

More

Travel offer: Join <em>¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ</em>’s Indonesian eclipse tour

Earth

Travel offer: Join ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ’s Indonesian eclipse tour

Ask anyone who’s seen a total solar eclipse, and they’ll tell you it’s a spectacle unlike anything else. Now you can experience one for yourself, by joining ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ 's first voyage of discovery – to the exotic islands of Indonesia. In the build-up to the big day on 9 March 2016, you will enjoy a tour designed …

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Regulars

Feedback: Rap's time lord defends clockmaking Texas teen

Feedback: Rap's time lord defends clockmaking Texas teen

(Image: Paul McDevitt) Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Troubled time TEXAS high school student Ahmed Mohamed got a ticking off when he showed off his latest creation – a digital clock. Seeing the box of wires and circuitry, an alarmed teacher did what any pedagogue …

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Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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