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This week's magazine

30 June 2012

Issue 2871

New Scientist issue 2871 cover
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Editor's picks

What kind of bang was the big bang?

Space

What kind of bang was the big bang?

Features
Mission to the mantle: Drilling through Earth's crust

Earth

Mission to the mantle: Drilling through Earth's crust

Features
Better than sunshine: See life in an improved light

Technology

Better than sunshine: See life in an improved light

Features

Table of contents

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Astrophile: Exoplanetary bedfellows make odd couple

Space

Astrophile: Exoplanetary bedfellows make odd couple

Astrophile is our weekly column on curious cosmic objects, from the solar system to the far reaches of the multiverse

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Life

Cobwebs shield the human gut from unwanted invaders

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Life

Is God's mercy to blame for high crime rates?

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Health

Obscure physics words get sign language equivalents

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Technology

Want terabit internet? Get light to do the twist

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Technology

Agent Higgs game turns real particle hunt on its head

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Health

Swine flu pandemic killed 15 times more than thought

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Earth

Lonesome George dies but his subspecies genes survive

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Life

Genes reveal grain of truth to Queen of Sheba story

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Physics

Evolution could generate new semiconducting structures

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Banking outage gives tiny glimpse of cybergeddon

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Both US coasts headed for extreme sea level rise

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60 Seconds

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Health

Scandal of an underfunded and undertreated cancer

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Physics

Shaking metallic grains turns them into tunable laser

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Earth

Earth Summit signals move to give nature a price tag

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Life

Giant living power cables let bacteria respire

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Eats bark, fruit and leaves: Diet of ancient human

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Killer fungi feed insects to plants

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Mind-reading opens up brain's thesaurus

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Space

Far side of the moon offers quiet place for telescopes

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Technology

AI systems could fight cyberbullying

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Technology

Patent trawler aims to predict next hot technologies

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Technology

AI fantasy football manager picks a winning team

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Life

Rubber hand shows brain can be fooled on skin colour

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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.

Earth

Rio Summit? More like the absolute nadir

SOME things defy parody. Leila Lopes – Miss Universe – came to last week's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to help celebrate World Desertification Day. Thus a treaty to hold back the deserts – one of the signature outcomes of the first Earth Summit 20 years ago, agreed at a time when world leaders …

Opinion

The second coming of Arc

Opinion

Technology

Cyberwar's eerie echoes of the A-bomb race

Opinion

Miracle buster: Why I traced holy water to leaky drain

Opinion

Space

SETI chief still waiting for ET to call

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.

Chile's icy nazarenos line up on glacial plains

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science LIKE a procession of hooded sinners, these penitentes stand guard on Chile's Chajnantor plain. They get their name from the pointed headgear of the nazarenos, penitents who take part in Holy Week …

Regulars

Features

What kind of bang was the big bang?

Space

What kind of bang was the big bang?

There's trouble at the start of time: the theory of cosmic inflation has got way out of control. Can quantum theory and holograms tame it?

Features

Earth

Mission to the mantle: Drilling through Earth's crust

Features

Technology

Better than sunshine: See life in an improved light

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.

Plotting the body's electricity grid

See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog From fainting goats to paralysis, physiologist Frances Ashcroft explains how bioelectricity controls our every move, in The Spark of Life ELECTRICITY controls our bodies. Every impulse, from those that keep our hearts …

CultureLab

How did humankind tame the wolf?

CultureLab

A carving studio in the wood

CultureLab

Good things come to those who procrastinate

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 1704

Joe's triangle Joe drew a right-angled triangle on an A6 file card. He asked Penny to cut it out and then cut it in two to make two right-angled triangles. Then he asked her to cut each triangle in two to make four right-angled triangles in total. Now Joe's triangle was very special. Penny found …

Regulars

Regulars

Feedback: Elephant obsessions

Feedback: Elephant obsessions

A pachyderm peculiar FEEDBACK has been invaded by elephants. The proximate cause is our plea for help in calculating how many actual elephants would be required to achieve the 8000 elephant-standing-on-a-Mini-Cooper units of pressure used by UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph . Should we take into account Newton's law of gravity and the reduced weight …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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