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This week's magazine

3 September 2022

Issue 3402

New Scientist issue 3402 cover
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Editor's picks

^BHormone replacement therapy.^b Close-up of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) pills in a circular dispenser. HRT pills are synthetic hormones used to treat menopausal women. They counteract the hormone deficiency that occurs at menopause. These pills contain oestrogen, and often progestogen, drugs. HRT helps to prevent ^Iosteoporosis,^i ^Iatherosclerosis^i and ^Iatrophic vaginitis^i (where the vagina becomes thin and dry). Pills are taken daily on a monthly basis to coincide with the menstrual cycle. Adverse effects include nausea, tenderness of the breasts, fluid retention and leg cramps.

Health

Outdated research on HRT is letting people down

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Who is Ancestor X? The biggest mystery in human evolution

Humans

Who is Ancestor X? The biggest mystery in human evolution

Features
Should you take HRT? Here's how to think clearly about the risks

Health

Should you take HRT? Here's how to think clearly about the risks

Features
The time-lapse telescope that will transform our view of the universe

Space

The time-lapse telescope that will transform our view of the universe

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

^BHormone replacement therapy.^b Close-up of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) pills in a circular dispenser. HRT pills are synthetic hormones used to treat menopausal women. They counteract the hormone deficiency that occurs at menopause. These pills contain oestrogen, and often progestogen, drugs. HRT helps to prevent ^Iosteoporosis,^i ^Iatherosclerosis^i and ^Iatrophic vaginitis^i (where the vagina becomes thin and dry). Pills are taken daily on a monthly basis to coincide with the menstrual cycle. Adverse effects include nausea, tenderness of the breasts, fluid retention and leg cramps.

Health

Outdated research on HRT is letting people down

It's time to be clear about the evidence around hormone replacement therapy and let people make up their own minds

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A beam of red light shines through a series of four lenses within a telescope-like device

Technology

Anti-laser can make any object suck in light

A maze of mirrors and lenses turns any material into a highly efficient light absorber and could be used for detection of faint light or charging distant devices with light

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Technology

AI-created lenses let camera ignore some objects when taking pictures

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Technology

Face recognition struggles to recognise us after five years of ageing

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Space

JWST has taken even more beautiful images of Jupiter and its aurora

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Physics

Plasmas could be used to make the world's most powerful laser

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Technology

3D-printed wood could start flat then twist into furniture as it dries

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Technology

Fire-resistant aluminium-sulphur battery charges in under a minute

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Technology

Squishable computer runs calculations depending on how you squish it

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Humans

Human ancestors may have walked on two legs 7 million years ago

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Health

Malaria vaccine using live modified parasites shows promise in trial

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Technology

Short animations could ‘inoculate’ YouTube users against fake news

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Health

Psilocybin therapy seems to help some people give up drinking alcohol

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Health

Synthetic mouse embryos with rudimentary brain grown in the lab

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Physics

Researchers have worked out the rules for how some things wrinkle

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Physics

Best evidence yet that fifth fundamental ‘chameleon’ force isn’t real

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Mind

Rapid eye movements during sleep reveal where mice look in dreams

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Space

JWST found carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere – and a mystery

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Life

Two-legged dinosaur from Zimbabwe is the oldest ever found in Africa

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Health

Drugs that mutate viruses to kill them could make them more dangerous

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Technology

Underwater data centre in the Pacific could be running by end of year

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Life

Mucus has evolved at least 15 times in mammals

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Life

Heat-loving, oil-eating bacteria are seeping out of the seafloor

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Environment

Deadly Pakistan floods are a climate catastrophe, says UN chief

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Life

Fungi evolved their weird and wild shapes in two big bursts

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Analysis

Artist Ciaran Gallagher painting a mural in Belfast depicting the candidates vying to be the next UK prime minister

Technology

Tory leadership contest's online vote is still vulnerable to hackers

Hacking concerns continue to dog the online Conservative party vote, which will decide next UK prime minister – should online voting even be used in such situations?

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Humans

How I gave a TED talk on dark matter

Comment

Environment

Our neighbouring planets can help us understand Earth's climate change

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Aperture

Roberto Garc?a-Roa

Life

Grisly photo of a zombie fungus bursting from a fly wins competition

This dramatic image of the fruiting bodies of a parasitic fungus erupting from a fly's body won Roberto García Roa the top prize in the BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition

Regulars

Features

The time-lapse telescope that will transform our view of the universe

Space

The time-lapse telescope that will transform our view of the universe

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will scan the whole southern sky every three nights. From short-lived supernovae to alien megastructures, here are some of the fleeting cosmic phenomena it could capture

Features

Humans

Who is Ancestor X? The biggest mystery in human evolution

Features

Health

Should you take HRT? Here's how to think clearly about the risks

Features

Culture

The Directors review: Five intimate short films about psychosis

Humans

The Directors review: Five intimate short films about psychosis

Five people in recovery from psychosis guide artist Marcus Coates as he recreates aspects of their experience in this series of disorienting and sometimes very frightening short films, finds Simon Ings

Culture

Humans

Planting Clues review: Intriguing tales about plants’ role in crime

Culture

Humans

Nomad Century review: a bold plan to manage climate migration

Culture

Humans

Don’t Miss: A fantastical journey through The Science of Middle Earth

Culture

More

2CAED7C Closeup shot of red Miracle fruit on a branch in a garden on a sunny afternoon

Humans

How miracle berries turn sour foods sweet

The fruit of Synsepalum dulcificum, a plant native to West Africa, doesn't taste sugary on its own, but any sour food you eat afterwards will turn miraculously sweet

Regulars

Puzzle #183: Can you work out the order the books are arranged in?

Regulars

Tom Gauld on graduate students

Regulars

Twisteddoodles on artificial intelligence and art

Regulars

Regulars

On the trail of the lost Welsh kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod

On the trail of the lost Welsh kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod

Feedback looks into the identification of two lost islands in Cardigan Bay, while also exploring a plaster sculpture of an 18th-century infant Jesus that bears a striking resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg

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Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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