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This week's magazine

2 June 2018

Issue 3180

New Scientist issue 3180 cover
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Editor's picks

Smear test

Health

Women aren't being told real risks of cervical cancer screening

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It’s time we stopped dismissing women’s health problems

Health

It’s time we stopped dismissing women’s health problems

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ
Somerton Man artwork

Humans

Who was the Somerton Man? Solving Australia's coldest case

Features
boat artwork

Humans

Have humans been sailors for a million years?

Features
Walter Pitts

Life

How a frog’s eye robbed us of a genius’s AI masterwork

Features
water artwork

Earth

H2Oh! Water is actually two liquids disguised as one

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Astronauts in space

Space

Cosmic cooperation is just what space exploration needs

SPACE, as Douglas Adams once pithily observed, is big. Really big. Our attempts to explore it seem puny by comparison: only a dozen astronauts have walked on the moon , and nine space probes have visited the outer solar system . But space exploration is more than the sum of its parts, and by collating …

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

It’s time we stopped dismissing women’s health problems

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Quantum stopwatch could be the best in the universe

Physics

Quantum stopwatch could be the best in the universe

To measure time with extreme precision, go quantum A quantum stopwatch that measures time by avoiding all except one final measurement would be the most accurate allowed by nature, suggests a new study. To measure the time taken by a series of events, an everyday classical stopwatch measures the elapsed time for each event and …

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Watch a badminton robot practice its game-winning trick shots

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Humans

We may have got the evolution of our big brains entirely wrong

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Brain implant for OCD surprisingly helps alleviate diabetes too

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Seafood-lovers have more sex and take less time to get pregnant

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Men more likely to get diabetes if they have overweight wives

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Bulletproof batteries could make body armour for combat

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Mystery ozone-destroying gases linked to badly recycled fridges

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Clouds of plasma let us zoom in on weird flashes from space

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

In big cities even the fish are always rushing around the place

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Asteroid that killed the dinosaurs caused massive global warming

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

The Great Barrier Reef has died 5 times in the last 30,000 years

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Humans

Dentists can smell your fear – and it may put your teeth at risk

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Pluto is not a planet – it's a billion comets squished together

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Physics

Watch the weird new solutions to the baffling three-body problem

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Physics

Bacteria teach us how to make green fuel from carbon dioxide

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

World's most-spoken languages may have arisen in ancient Iran

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Faulty placenta may explain why some people get schizophrenia

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Brains grow brand new neurons after experimental drug injection

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Mystery ghost ape species found hidden in bonobo’s genome

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Ireland votes to reform abortion laws in referendum landslide

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Papua New Guinea bans Facebook for a month in fake news blitz

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

GM golden rice gets approval from food regulators in the US

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

AI inspired by the film Spotlight could track down child abusers

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Analysis

Smoke rises out of a chimney

Earth

Why the UK’s plan to tackle air pollution is mostly hot air

Air pollution is a growing issue The UK government has today announced plans to tackle sources of air pollution, including trendy wood-burning stoves, but its Clean Air Strategy fails to address the real problem. While pollution from wood-burning stoves is a relatively new problem for the UK – they became fashionable a few years ago - …

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

How a change in tactics could help autism research

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

We need to grab some rocks from Mars – let's just get on with it

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Women aren't being told real risks of cervical cancer screening

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Aperture

stag beetles

Life

Fighting with a fifth of your body weight on your head

IMAGINE carrying almost a fifth of your body weight on your head – or, more accurately, in your massively elongated jaws. That's how it feels to be an adult male stag beetle. The two pictured here were spotted in Germany, brawling on an oak tree branch. Their jaws are mighty, but they are cumbersome as …

Regulars

Features

water artwork

Earth

H2Oh! Water is actually two liquids disguised as one

Earth's most precious liquid is weird, and if it wasn't we would die. Now experiments have uncovered its secret: it's not one liquid, it's two

Features

Humans

Who was the Somerton Man? Solving Australia's coldest case

Features

Life

How a frog’s eye robbed us of a genius’s AI masterwork

Features

Humans

Have humans been sailors for a million years?

Features

Culture

Halo Jones: return of the 50th-century galactic adventurer

Space

Halo Jones: return of the 50th-century galactic adventurer

One of the great comic book characters of all time, and a pioneer for all women who seek powerful roles, gets a new lease of life

Culture

Technology

Censored: Why China’s online oversight is anything but crude

Culture

Health

Model Behaviour: How a sceptic was won over by life in the lab

Culture

More

Old ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ: Communication on Earth – and beyond

Technology

Old ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ: Communication on Earth – and beyond

COMMUNICATION is key. Indeed, that's why ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ exists: to communicate science to the world. And possibly beyond... In our 14 June 1962 issue we were concerned that, once humans had made their way to the moon, disparate groups of lunar explorers might be unable to communicate with each other, let alone Earth. Radio waves, …

Regulars

Regulars

confessional box cartoon

Feedback: Are fruitloopy healing stones costing the earth?

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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