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This week's magazine

18 August 2012

Issue 2878

New Scientist issue 2878 cover
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Editor's picks

They never forget: The strange gift of perfect memory

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They never forget: The strange gift of perfect memory

Features
Plume power: Deep engines of earthquakes and volcanoes

Earth

Plume power: Deep engines of earthquakes and volcanoes

Features
Incredible shrunken animals: The smallest of them all

Life

Incredible shrunken animals: The smallest of them all

Features
Calculated violence: Numbers that predict revolutions

Physics

Calculated violence: Numbers that predict revolutions

Features

Table of contents

News

Sandpipers achieve world record for sleeplessness

Life

Sandpipers achieve world record for sleeplessness

If you snooze you lose: color-banded male pectoral sandpipers You may think you can cope without sleep, but you have nothing on male pectoral sandpipers. Some of these birds can go more than a fortnight with hardly any sleep – the most extreme case of uninduced sleep deprivation known in any animal. What's more, the …

News

Life

Stem cells responsible for higher brain function found

News

Technology

Fingertip tingle enhances a surgeon's sense of touch

News

Life

Zoologger: The longest tunnels dug by a mammal

News

Earth

US nuke plant delay fails to solve storage conundrum

News

Earth

Changeable climate makes frogs vulnerable to disease

News

Life

Human and Neanderthal interbreeding questioned

News

Earth

US to help clean up Agent Orange from Vietnamese site

News

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Olympic stars unite to promote global hunger summit

News

Technology

Workers at Fukushima feel the pressure of blame

News

Earth

Arctic sea ice heads for record low

News

Technology

LHC primordial matter is hottest stuff ever made

News

Life

Death by IQ: US inmates condemned by flawed tests

News

US drought could spur civil unrest elsewhere

News

60 Seconds

News

Life

Corpse stars could nurture life on alien planets

News

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Nutrient-boosted foods protect against blindness

News

Life

Stone Age skull-smashers spark a cultural mystery

News

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Cellphone-style algorithm reveals cholera source

News

Life

Protecting prion protein keeps stem cells young

News

Life

Bendable teeth seen for the first time

News

Space

'Cold' solar loops may help solve corona puzzle

News

Space

Space-time ripples record black hole crashes

News

Life

Folded DNA becomes Trojan horse to attack cancer

News

Technology

Imaging cameras detect severity of skin problems

News

Technology

Frankenstein virus creates malware by pilfering code

News

Technology

3D printers tell you when your design will fail

News

Technology

Robot learns to recognise itself in the mirror

News

Technology

Smartphone app keeps children from getting lost

News

Opinion

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.

Life

Bad science behind unconstitutional US executions

When US courts refuse to accept problems associated with IQ tests it can make the difference between execution and life imprisonment

Opinion

Nutrient-boosted Golden Rice should be embraced

Opinion

Life

Interbreeding with Neanderthals, or simply breeding?

Opinion

Earth

We're still on the slippery slope to peak oil

Opinion

Technology

Dreaming up the shape of cars to come

Opinion

Life

Big burn theory: Why humans spontaneously combust

Opinion

Analysis

Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

Technology

Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

Soon to be car parts? THE hottest new material in town is light, strong and conducts electricity. What's more, it's been around a long, long time. Nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) , which is produced by processing wood pulp, is being hailed as the latest wonder material. Japan-based Pioneer Electronics is applying it to the next generation …

News

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.

Curiosity to Earth: Look! Me on Mars

See more: To see the image this article refers to, see our Picture of the Day post TAKING a great picture of yourself is never easy – even if you're a pioneering robot sophisticated enough to explore Mars for signs of alien life. This incomplete self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars on …

Regulars

Features

They never forget: The strange gift of perfect memory

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They never forget: The strange gift of perfect memory

Some people can recall what happened on almost every day of their lives. Unlocking their secrets could shed light on the way all our memories work

Features

Earth

Plume power: Deep engines of earthquakes and volcanoes

Features

Life

Incredible shrunken animals: The smallest of them all

Features

Physics

Calculated violence: Numbers that predict revolutions

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.

Technology

Marie Curie, the family woman

In Marie Curie and Her Daughters Shelley Emling explores the latter years of the famous scientist's life, which were in many ways the most eventful BIOGRAPHIES of Marie Curie tend to neglect her last two decades or so and concentrate on her scientific career up to the isolation of radium, for which she won her …

CultureLab

Humans

The purpose and problems of pain

CultureLab

Environment

Why we need to leave wiggle room for the planet

CultureLab

We are already superhuman

CultureLab

More

The chemical secrets of your grocery bag

The chemical secrets of your grocery bag

Fancy developing something that will be used every day by millions of people worldwide? A career as a product development chemist might be just up your aisle

Careers

Enigma Number 1711

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Authored by a dog

Feedback: Authored by a dog

Authored by a dog ANOTHER day, and another "scamference" invitation arrives – this one to a "Climate Change Volunteer Conference 2012". It's supposed to take place at the "Royal Eco Hotel", 26 Brook Street, London, W1K 5DQ – which turns out to be the same shoe shop as the "London Eco Hotel" venue of the …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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