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This week's magazine

8 July 2023

Issue 3446

New Scientist issue 3446 cover
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Editor's picks

T861Y1 CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing complex, illustration

Health

The high cost of CRISPR therapy will stop it getting to most patients

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How CRISPR therapy could cure everything from cancer to infertility

Health

How CRISPR therapy could cure everything from cancer to infertility

Features
Quantum superposition or quantum entanglement concept illustration. Superposition is the ability of a quantum system to be in multiple states at the same time until it is measured. Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently.

Physics

Rethinking reality: Is the entire universe a single quantum object?

Features
Free range pigs digging food in the dirt

Life

How do captive animals really feel, and can we make them happier?

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

T861Y1 CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing complex, illustration

Health

The high cost of CRISPR therapy will stop it getting to most patients

The world’s first CRISPR therapy may be approved soon, but sadly it is unlikely to be affordable for hundreds of thousands of people whose pain it could end

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Wim Hof in icy water at an event to increase awareness of climate change in Hong Kong in 2010

Health

Wim Hof's cold therapy for good health lacks robust evidence

Also known as The Iceman, Wim Hof's claims that his breathing and cold exposure methods will "keep your body and mind in its optimal natural state" lack good scientific evidence

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Health

Muscle fibres become misshapen as we age but exercise can restore them

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Space

Our solar system could be hiding an extra planet the size of Uranus

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Life

Orangutans can make two sounds at once like a beatboxer

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Health

Neurons that respond to vibration discovered in the clitoris and penis

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Life

Young squash bugs eat adults’ poo to stock up on healthy bacteria

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Humans

Ape family tree suggests human ancestors weren’t particularly violent

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Technology

Watch a transforming robot roll, crawl, stand up and fly

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Humans

The myth that men hunt while women stay at home is entirely wrong

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Space

Interstellar meteor fragments may have been found in the Pacific Ocean

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Environment

Soya beans made more meat-like by adding genes for pig proteins

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Life

Female frogs may croak to deter males from mating with them

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Health

Opioids no better than placebo for short-term lower back and neck pain

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Physics

Gravitational waves produce a background hum across the whole universe

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Space

IceCube detector finds neutrinos from the Milky Way for the first time

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Environment

US is on track to halve emissions by 2035, but this still isn't enough

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Health

Genetic marker discovered for the severity of multiple sclerosis

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Mind

We now know how our brain works to overcome negative emotions

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Life

One third of all vertebrate species are exploited by humans

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Life

The Atlantic cod may be five separate species rather than one

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Humans

Stone tools in Filipino cave were used to make ropes 40,000 years ago

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Space

Time appears to run five times slower in the early universe

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Analysis

Mathematics

Should all mathematical proofs be checked by a computer?

Proofs, the central tenet of mathematics, occasionally have errors in them. Could computers stop this from happening, asks mathematician Emily Riehl

Comment

Space

We must address a key obstacle to our new age of space exploration

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Aperture

Solar Flare X1 from AR2994 in ?Motion? ? Miguel Claro Photograph of the Sun taken from a 27-minute timelapse of a solar, flare which took place on 30 April 2022. Taken with a Sky-Watcher Esprit ED120 telescope, Daystar Quark Chromosphere filter, Sky-Watcher EQ6 mount, Player One Apollo M-Max Solar camera, 840 mm, 900 frames at 9.1 ms per frame (recorded as video at 109 FPS) Location: Dark Sky Alqueva region, ?vora district, Portugal

Comment

See the remarkable photos up for Astronomy Photographer of the Year

From a solar flare to the Jellyfish Nebula, these are some of the photographs in the running for the annual competition organised by the Royal Observatory in London, UK

Regulars

Features

Free range pigs digging food in the dirt

Life

How do captive animals really feel, and can we make them happier?

We are finally figuring out the subtle ways that farm and zoo animals reveal their emotional states, from anxiety to optimism and even joy. The insights are also revealing some surprising ways we can improve their lives

Features

Health

How CRISPR therapy could cure everything from cancer to infertility

Features

Physics

Rethinking reality: Is the entire universe a single quantum object?

Features

Culture

T-bacteriophages on E.coli. Coloured Transmission Electron Micrograph (TEM) of T-bacteriophage viruses attacking a bacterial cell of Escherichia coli. Seven virus particles are seen (blue), each with a head and a tail. Four of these are

Comment

The Good Virus review: Could viruses cure deadly infections?

Tom Ireland's compelling and original book makes a strong case for revisiting phage therapy – the idea of fighting bacterial infections with viruses

Culture

Comment

The Age of Guilt review: Can Freud shed light on the internet?

Culture

Comment

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ recommends: Love + Science and The Price of Peace

Culture

Comment

Best Interests review: Moving drama about life with muscular dystrophy

Culture

More

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2017/07/Exploring_Jupiter t may still be some years away from launch, and over a decade before our Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer reaches the gas giant and its icy moons, but preparations are well under way. This new artist?s impression depicts the final spacecraft design, the construction of which is being overseen by Airbus Defence and Space. The spacecraft?s solar wings form a distinctive cross-shape totalling 97 sq m, the largest ever flown on an interplanetary mission. The size is essential to generate sufficient power ? around 850 W ? for the instruments and spacecraft so far from the Sun. The spacecraft is furnished with a laboratory of instruments that will investigate Jupiter?s turbulent atmosphere and vast magnetosphere, as well as study the planet-sized moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. All three moons are thought to have oceans of liquid water beneath their icy crusts and should provide key clues on the potential for such moons to harbour habitable environments. Juice?s cameras will capture exquisite details of the moon?s features, as well as identify the ices and minerals on their surfaces. Other instruments will sound the subsurface and interior of the moons to better understand the location and nature of their buried oceans. The tenuous atmosphere around the moons will also be explored. The spacecraft will also include booms such as a 10 m-long magnetometer mast (seen towards the bottom of Juice in the artist impression), a 16 m radar antenna (the long boom across the top), and antennas to measure electric and magnetic fields. Ganymede is the only moon in the Solar System to generate its own internal magnetic field, and Juice is well equipped to document its behaviour and explore its interaction with Jupiter?s own magnetosphere. Juice is scheduled for launch in 2022 on a seven-year journey to the Jovian system. Its tour will include a dedicated orbit phase of Jupiter, targeted flybys of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and finally nine months orbiting Ganymede ? the first time any moon beyond our own has been orbited by a spacecraft. In the artist?s impression, which is not to scale, Ganymede is shown in the foreground, Callisto to the far right, and Europa centre-right. Volcanically active moon Io is also shown, at left. The moons were imaged by NASA?s Galileo spacecraft; Jupiter is seen here with a vivid aurora, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. ESA/ATG medialab; Jupiter: NASA/ESA/J. Nichols (University of Leicester); Ganymede: NASA/JPL; Io: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona; Callisto and Europa: NASA/JPL/DLR

Space

How to spot Jupiter's icy moons

Jupiter’s Galilean moons are promising places to look for life. Now is a great time to see them, says Abigail Beall

Regulars

Puzzle #229: Can you help Madeline cube her cheese efficiently?

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Tom Gauld on a physicist's summer holiday

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Twisteddoodles gives Earth a makeover

Regulars

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Academia’s love affair with flowers hasn’t been the same since Freud

Academia’s love affair with flowers hasn’t been the same since Freud

Feedback explores the little-studied subject of polymorphic perversion, in particular our feelings about plants that look like "female lips" and "swaddled infants"

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Letters

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