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This week's magazine

7 April 2012

Issue 2859

New Scientist issue 2859 cover
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Editor's picks

Social networks: Getting connected

Life

Social networks: Getting connected

Features
Social networks: Human social networks

Life

Social networks: Human social networks

Features
Social networks: Electronic networking

Life

Social networks: Electronic networking

Features
Social networks: Going global

Life

Social networks: Going global

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.

Immune retune: Recharging your body's natural defences

Features
Searching for the sun's long-lost siblings

Space

Searching for the sun's long-lost siblings

Features

Table of contents

News

US scepticism – it's been a long time coming

US scepticism – it's been a long time coming

Santorum: the hoax, it's this big From Rick Santorum's assertion that global warming is a "hoax" to Rick Perry's support for intelligent design , the current Republican presidential primary season has sometimes seemed like a science-free zone. But far from being a recent phenomenon, such comments reflect distrust in science among American conservatives that has …

News

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Life-extending drug without the negative side effects

News

Life

Pesticides cause bees to lose their bearings

News

Earth

Age of oldest rocks off by millions of years

News

Life

Human brain organised like a 3D 'New York City' grid

News

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Biobank promises to pinpoint the cause of disease

News

Physics

World's most sensitive scales detect a yoctogram

News

Earth

Shell overcomes legal obstacles to Arctic drilling

News

Space

Ancient sound waves sculpted galaxy formation

News

Earth

Report reveals earlier problems at North Sea gas site

News

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Mapping the language minefield for kids with autism

News

Earth

Abandoning nuclear energy may not boost renewables

News

Life

Ash traces hint at cave cuisine 1 million years ago

News

Space

Astrophile: The planets that formed by cell division

News

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Controversial flu studies cleared for publication

News

Earth

Stripping CO2 from air requires largest industry ever

News

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US army orders drug review after Afghan massacre

News

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Increased autism rates crush vaccine hypothesis

News

60 Seconds

News

Technology

Gut-on-a-chip takes bellyache out of digestion studies

News

Life

Tides turn some habitable planets hellish

News

Space

Marathon mouse space mission boosts bone protection

News

Life

Ladybirds think like an aphid to catch a meal

News

Life

Taking time off can help you learn a language

News

Technology

Face recognition could catch bad avatars

News

Technology

How to build an artificial star on Earth

News

Technology

Was the Arab Spring really a Facebook revolution?

News

Technology

Tweet your own highlight reel with #EpicPlay

News

Earth

Climate migration is a solution, not desperation

News

Opinion

Political divides begin in the brain

Humans

Political divides begin in the brain

Differences in political belief seem to have some basis in biology, which could promote tolerance on both sides, but probably won't

Opinion

Humans

Aliens, but definitely not as we know them

Opinion

Physicists must get used to the limelight

Opinion

We need joined-up ocean records

Opinion

Earth

There's more to nuclear fusion than ITER

Opinion

Aperture

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.

Meditating seal looks to the sky

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science

Regulars

Features

Social networks: Getting connected

Life

Social networks: Getting connected

Have you heard? Read more: " Instant Expert: Evolution of social networks " We tend to think of social networks as being distinctly human. In fact, they occur wherever animals live in "bonded" groups – where individuals gather together because of their personal relationships rather than being forced to by environmental factors such as a …

Features

Life

Social networks: Human social networks

Features

Life

Social networks: Electronic networking

Features

Life

Social networks: Going global

Features

Immune retune: Recharging your body's natural defences

Features

Space

Searching for the sun's long-lost siblings

Features

Culturelab

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.

Environment

Can primates shed light on the roots of romance?

See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog

CultureLab

Our desire to thwart death drives progress

CultureLab

The secret stories from inside your body

CultureLab

Should video games be considered art?

CultureLab

What military operations can learn from nature

CultureLab

More

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.

Enigma Number 1692

Key factors Clever logic should enable you to find the nine-figure number that I have in mind. It consists of the digits 1 to 9 in some order, and in the number each digit is next to another that differs from it by one. In just one case a digit has both neighbours differing from …

Regulars

Regulars

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.

Feedback: So secret it's signposted

So secret it's signposted READERS have sent many examples of signs that suggest a quantumesque uncertainty of position in space, such as "queue both sides" (21 January) . A colleague spotted one near the UK town of Ongar in Essex that appears to be temporally confused: in large white letters on a brown background it …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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