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This week's magazine

30 March 2013

Issue 2910

New Scientist issue 2910 cover
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Editor's picks

Stupidity: What makes people do dumb things

Life

Stupidity: What makes people do dumb things

Features
Lost in the cloud: How safe are your online possessions?

Technology

Lost in the cloud: How safe are your online possessions?

Features
Atmospheric rivers: When the sky falls

Earth

Atmospheric rivers: When the sky falls

Features
Migration mystery: Who were the first Americans?

Life

Migration mystery: Who were the first Americans?

Features

Table of contents

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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

Women abused as children likelier to bear autistic child

Women abused in childhood are more likely to have children with autism, a new epidemiological study suggests. The finding adds a disturbing new dimension to the heated debate over the condition's underlying causes. Andrea Roberts of the Harvard School of Public Health suspected that there might be a link between childhood abuse and having an …

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Health

Brain circuits uniquely disrupted in Gulf War syndrome

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Earth

Zoologger: The changing face of the lion

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Earth

US soldiers sue over Fukushima radiation exposure

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Earth

Bees to have their day in court over insecticide use

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Physics

Information superhighway approaches light speed

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Space

Astrophile: Snapshot of a two-faced Tatooine world

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Health

New malaria drug packs a triple punch

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Earth

Master gene helps weeds defy all weedkillers

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Space

Planck map reveals birth, life and death of a cosmos

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Life

Books expose the rise of the emotionless zombies

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Technology

US to regulate Bitcoin currency at its all-time high

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Health

Anti-doping agency warns athletes of black market drug

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Apollo moon mission engines rise from the ocean floor

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Shapely algebra and string theory makes millionaires

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Life

Fake caviar threatens existence of dino fish

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60 Seconds

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Health

Gene therapy cures leukaemia in eight days

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Life

Quality control opens path to synthetic biology's Ikea

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Technology

How a surgeon installs seizure sensors inside a skull

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Space

Outcast black holes surround the Milky Way

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Earth

Europe to be battered by Sandy-style superstorms

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Technology

Crowd-sensing apps tap every stranger's eyes and ears

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Technology

Digital shrinks find depressed faces and body language

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Technology

Smell-o-vision screens let you really smell the coffee

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Life

Bigger isn't always better for becoming multicellular

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Opinion

Nobel physicist: Give people a one-way ticket to Mars

Space

Nobel physicist: Give people a one-way ticket to Mars

Gerard 't Hooft explains why he is an ambassador for the Mars One project, and whether he fancies a reality-TV-funded move to the Red Planet himself

Opinion

Life

Time to get smarter about stupidity

Opinion

Space

Planck cosmos and LHC's Higgs: Hurray for big science

Opinion

Earth

Ships must kill off the beasties in the ballast water

Opinion

Technology

It is time to train atoms to do what we want

Opinion

Analysis

Robo-surgeon da Vinci faces lawsuits

Technology

Robo-surgeon da Vinci faces lawsuits

Robot surgery can mean less blood loss, smaller scars and quicker recovery time, but what if there are complications?

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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.

Cherry-blossom volcano spews forth lava and lightning

See more: To see the image this article refers to, keep checking Picture of the Day on our news blog Short Sharp Science IT LOOKS like the end of the world – in fact it's only the end of Japan. This is Sakurajima volcano, on the southern tip of Kyushu, the most southerly of Japan's …

Regulars

Features

Stupidity: What makes people do dumb things

Life

Stupidity: What makes people do dumb things

Human intelligence varies astonishingly. Why didn’t evolution make us all geniuses, and why do even those with high IQ act like fools?

Features

Technology

Lost in the cloud: How safe are your online possessions?

Features

Earth

Atmospheric rivers: When the sky falls

Features

Life

Migration mystery: Who were the first Americans?

Features

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 1742

Chip-chop I have a seven-figure number that uses seven consecutive digits in some order. Starting at the left and deleting a digit leaves a six-digit number, then deleting the right-end digit leaves a five-digit number, then deleting the left-hand end digit leaves a four-digit number, and so on, alternating sides until a single digit is …

Regulars

Time for economics to shed its fanciful past

Books & Arts

Technology

Real life with robots in 20 and 200 years

Books & Arts

Has technology forced us into a 'present shock'?

Books & Arts

Regulars

Feedback: Which part of 'partial zero' don't we get?

Feedback: Which part of 'partial zero' don't we get?

Caption Which part of "partial zero" don't we understand? READER John Cleveland is puzzled. His new Subaru car proudly declares itself to be a "Partial Zero Emission Vehicle" (PZEV). "Not being a great mathematician," he writes, "I've spent way too much time sussing out what quantity of greenhouse gases might be in a part of …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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