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This week's magazine

15 April 2017

Issue 3121

New Scientist issue 3121 cover
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Editor's picks

canal

Technology

Mega-canals could slice through continents for giant ships

News
science fish

Humans

Unholy? Atheists should embrace the science of religion

News
Oganessian

Mr Element 118: The only living person on the periodic table

Features
Jesus poster

Humans

Faith of the faithless: Is atheism just another religion?

Features
cyborg leaf

Life

Make like a leaf: How copying photosynthesis can change society

Features
lightning 1

Earth

Bolt from the blue: Lightning doesn't form like we thought

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

science fish

Humans

Unholy? Atheists should embrace the science of religion

“Belief-ologists” are revealing how religion works. Belittling their work does nothing to further the secularists’ cause, but learning from it might

News

News

São Tomé grosbeak

Life

World's largest canary discovered on island of giants and dwarfs

Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world

News

Humans

Syria chemical attack looks like nerve gas – and was no accident

News

Life

Squishy robotic manta ray flaps its wings to spy in the ocean

News

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Cheap stroke drug boosts pancreatic cancer survival in mice

News

Technology

Facebook will use photo-matching tech to take down revenge porn

News

Life

How smaller snakes strangle bigger snakes and swallow them whole

News

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Gluten allergy in coeliac disease may be provoked by virus

News

Life

Giant viruses may just be small viruses that stole hosts’ genes

News

Technology

Sock puppet accounts unmasked by the way they write and post

News

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Rich black people have worse health than rich white people

News

Technology

New computer vision challenge wants to teach robots to see in 3D

News

Life

Sabre-toothed tigers in ice-age Los Angeles had bad back trouble

News

Technology

Thousands of fake companies added to Google Maps every month

News

Earth

Mass bleaching hits Great Barrier Reef for second year in a row

News

Physics

Trump plans to revive nuclear waste plans axed by Obama in 2010

News

Space

Mars is so small because Jupiter shook up its formation

News

Space

NASA funds radical Pluto hopper and cosmic echolocation concepts

News

Technology

Fingerprint challenge aims to automate how best prints get taken

News

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People on ecstasy feel loved-up because MDMA boosts trust

News

Radiation-eating bacteria could make nuclear waste safer

News

Twisted semiconductors could help project moving holograms

News

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Injecting virus into brain may relieve Parkinson’s symptoms

News

Humans

We dream loads more than we thought – and forget most of it

News

Earth

Life could exist up to 10 kilometres beneath the sea floor

News

Space

Volunteers spot four super-Earths orbiting sun-like star

News

Genetic test for Alzheimer's risk given approval for sale in US

News

Earth

60 Seconds

News

Space

New approach to dark energy might explain our cooling universe

News

Analysis

Crowd seen through Turkish flag

Humans

Ongoing academic purge shows Turkey is heading to a dark place

Scientists are among hundreds of academics sacked ahead of Turkey's referendum on handing more power to its authoritarian president, says Caghan Kizil

News

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Is taking sugar out of food as difficult as industry says it is?

News

Technology

Mega-canals could slice through continents for giant ships

News

Life

Why the "bisexuality hormone" study is not as simple as it seems

News

Aperture

humpbacks

Life

Drone spots humpback whales and orcas moving in on cloud of fish

SHALLOW waters glow in the midday sun off northern Norway, where a mass of Atlantic herring have caught the attention of humpback whales (left) and killer whales (right). That large black splotch isn't a sandbank: it's a shoal of millions of fish about to be feasted upon. This photograph was shot using a drone last …

Regulars

Features

cyborg leaf

Life

Make like a leaf: How copying photosynthesis can change society

Fusing living cells with our best light-harvesting technology could lead to cyborg factories for clean energy and new compounds. And not just on Earth

Features

Earth

Bolt from the blue: Lightning doesn't form like we thought

Features

Mr Element 118: The only living person on the periodic table

Features

Humans

Faith of the faithless: Is atheism just another religion?

Features

Culture

Mission control

Space

Go at throttle up: The secret world of NASA’s mission control

Men on a mission “Go.” “No go.” “We have lift off.” “Go for trans-lunar injection.” “Hold at T-minus 30 seconds.” This is just some of the evocative and strangely reassuring jargon of the NASA mission controller. Such space-flight speak seems to flow so naturally during a rocket launch telecast that it is hard to imagine …

Culture

Humans

Three Stones Make a Wall: the inside story of archaeology

Culture

The 2017 Wellcome book prize shortlist is dramatic and diverse

Culture

More

IT class

Technology

Unlocking the online potential of disadvantaged young people

Helping the young with tech From mobile computing to augmented reality to artificial intelligence, technological growth has exploded since the turn of the 21st century. Keeping up can be tough, even for the most dedicated of enthusiasts. There's a common assumption that young people have the knowledge and confidence to use technology with ease. The …

Regulars

Regulars

cartoon ice

Feedback: Our body heat is melting the ice caps, say US senator

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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