This week's magazine
26 June 2021
Issue 3340
On the cover
Editor's picks
Table of contents
¿ìè¶ÌÊÓÆµ
Military comes to aid of South Africa’s hospitals amid third wave
Many African countries are experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases and increased pressure on hospital systems
Health
Long covid: Do I have it, how long will it last and can we treat it?
Health
Inside the UK’s first long covid clinic: ‘It was life-changing’
Health
Psoriasis drug could be used to help people stop drinking alcohol
Life
Young eels escape from the mouths of fish by wriggling out the gills
Technology
Flaw in old mobile phone encryption code could be used for snooping
Space
Pluto is covered in huge red patches and we don’t know what they are
Humans
A 1000-year-old Indian temple had an early form of air conditioning
Life
Selfish genes fight each other with DNA-destroying CRISPR systems
Technology
Autonomous walking excavator can build walls and dig trenches
Life
Snakes know how much venom they have and won’t attack if running low
Technology
Google and Facebook hit by faulty chips that can silently corrupt data
Humans
Female inventors hold just a quarter of US biomedical patents
Environment
60 per cent of world’s rivers stop flowing for at least one day a year
Space
Mysterious dimming of Betelgeuse was the result of star ejecting gas
Technology
Quantum data link established between two distant Chinese cities
Humans
Europeans used to open their relatives’ graves to recover heirlooms
Physics
LIGO mirrors cooled to near absolute zero could probe quantum gravity
Analysis
Features
Physics
The hunt for a primordial force that would revolutionise cosmology
Finding magnetic fields dating back to the big bang would transform our understanding of how the universe evolved. Now astronomers think they're on brink of such a breakthrough
Life
Can we use nudge theory to help endangered animals save themselves?
Health
The surprising, ancient origins of TB, humanity’s most deadly disease
Culture
Humans
Katherine Johnson memoir: Her incredible life as a NASA mathematician
The Hollywood movie Hidden Figures made a star of Katherine Johnson, the pioneering NASA mathematician whose talents played a key part in putting the first US astronaut into orbit. Her own memoir, My Remarkable Journey, offers fresh insights
Humans
Don’t Miss: Chris Pratt takes on aliens in Amazon’s The Tomorrow War
Humans
Fathom review: What happens when humans try to talk to whales
Life
Sweet Tooth Review: An eccentric mix of sci-fi and fantasy
More
Environment
How your seaweed-filled beach pics could help monitor climate change
Seaweed can reveal a lot about marine ecosystems. Take part in the Big Seaweed Search to help researchers discover how climate change is impacting UK sea life
A Twisteddoodles guide to chemical bonding
Tom Gauld’s Institute for Lifespan Extension Research
Regulars
Humans
Does quantum physics explain why parcel delivery times are so vague?
Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more