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This week's magazine

15 March 2014

Issue 2960

New Scientist issue 2960 cover
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Editor's picks

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

Formula 1 will spearhead greener cars for us all

Opinion
The therapy pill: Forget your phobia in fast forward

Health

The therapy pill: Forget your phobia in fast forward

Features
Eccentric Earths: Weird planets where life might lurk

Life

Eccentric Earths: Weird planets where life might lurk

Features
Evolution's traps: When our world leads animals astray

Earth

Evolution's traps: When our world leads animals astray

Features
Virtual clone: A guinea-pig twin will keep you healthy

Life

Virtual clone: A guinea-pig twin will keep you healthy

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

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

Dare we hope for a global climate treaty next year?

The world is getting greener and the political appetite for change growing – and the UN's lead climate negotiator is infectiously optimistic

Opinion

Earth

US-Mexico deal shows how to make water peace, not war

Opinion

Earth

Formula 1 will spearhead greener cars for us all

Opinion

51¶¯Âþ

Spider monkey society is sexually segregated

Life

Spider monkey society is sexually segregated

No girls allowed Ew, boys! A species of spider monkey has been found to live in strictly sexually segregated societies, apparently because the males attack the females if they spend too much time together. They are the first non-human primate species known to systematically separate along gender lines. Geoffroy's spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi, live in …

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Health

Monkeys expose narrow window for baby HIV 'cure'

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Space

Earth raises a plasma shield to battle solar storms

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Life

Did dark matter kill the dinosaurs? Maybe…

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Earth

Massive stores of UK shale gas will tempt frackers

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Health

Rugby players warned of long-term brain injury risks

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Space

Most Mars meteorites may be from same giant crater

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Earth

How much hotter is the planet going to get?

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Earth

Four banned ozone depleters detected in the atmosphere

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Earth

Bummer. Climate change will shrink gnarly Aussie waves

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Life

First test to predict Alzheimer's years in advance

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Life

A burst of orange light wakes up our 'circadian eye'

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Space

Invisible Saturn-sized planet given away by comet army

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Life

Zoologger: Female spider kills male to attract a mate

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Technology

Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing

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Space

First twin astronauts take on space microbiome

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Space

Australia hatches plan to zap space junk with lasers

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Environment

60 Seconds

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Earth

Huge water pulse to bring Colorado river back from dead

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Health

Is OCD an addiction like drugs or gambling?

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Space

Desktop quantum cloud to hunt elusive space-time waves

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Technology

7 tricks to keep F1 cars fast and fuel-efficient

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Technology

Robot elephant trunk learns motor skills like a baby

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Technology

Watch as the world's first 3D-printed house goes up

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Life

Shrub is a smart gambler when tackling parasites

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Life

The genes that mean you have a good ear for music

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Health

Threatwatch: Chikungunya may explode with rainy season

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Opinion

Clean energy or cheap energy? We can have both

Earth

Clean energy or cheap energy? We can have both

Rising energy bills don’t mean we should give up on cutting our carbon emissions. Quite the opposite

Opinion

Life

Why I gave away the fossils I spent 20 years finding

Opinion

Earth

We'll live to see a low-carbon world: UN climate chief

Opinion

Analysis

Facebook drones alone won't help the offline world

Technology

Facebook drones alone won't help the offline world

Big tech firms like Facebook and Google want to bring the internet to the poor world, but their high-flying access points can be only part of the solution

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Aperture

Cute but deadly furball launches death attack

Life

Cute but deadly furball launches death attack

(Image: Jurgen Freund/naturepl.com) WITH their massive eyes, tarsiers are high on most people's cute list. But extreme cuteness comes at a price. The eyes are so big that each eyeball, at 16 millimetres in diameter, takes up the same volume as the entire brain . The skull is madly shaped to accommodate this arrangement, and …

Regulars

Features

The therapy pill: Forget your phobia in fast forward

Health

The therapy pill: Forget your phobia in fast forward

Is a pill to banish phobias too good to be true? (Image: Jun Ahn/Barcroft Media) Talking cures for phobias or addictions take ages to detrain your brain. What if a memory-boosting drug let you do it in a day? IT'S happening again. My heart starts pounding and my pulse races. I can feel my face …

Features

Life

Eccentric Earths: Weird planets where life might lurk

Features

Earth

Evolution's traps: When our world leads animals astray

Features

Life

Virtual clone: A guinea-pig twin will keep you healthy

Features

Culturelab

Wet revolution: Where's the world water manifesto?

Earth

Wet revolution: Where's the world water manifesto?

To survive water shortages, nations need to rethink their supplies (Image: Dylan Goldby at Welkinglight Photography/Getty) We need a fourth water revolution to cope with the world's shortages, says Fred Pearce : two new books reveal the problem but don't go far enough EVER wondered what reactivated sludge is? Or what links your local water …

CultureLab

Physics

No coincidence? Statistics and the outrageously unlikely

CultureLab

More

Lift off: How to launch your career after a postdoc

Lift off: How to launch your career after a postdoc

The Postdoc Survival Guide: Part 3

In a three-part series, 51¶¯Âþ serves up all you need to know about bagging a postdoc, making the most of your experience, and successfully transitioning to the tenure track

Landing one of the few job openings on the faculty tenure track requires luck as well as scientific excellence, so ensure you have a realistic backup plan

Careers

Regulars

Feedback: Going down the tubes with CO<SUB>2</SUB>

Feedback: Going down the tubes with CO2

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Going down the tubes DELIGHTFUL nonsense – that was Henry Shipley's verdict on the conspiracy concept that orchestras tune the note A to 440 hertz because of a Nazi plot (18 January) . He observes that the subject could introduce …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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