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This week's magazine

27 September 2014

Issue 2988

New Scientist issue 2988 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

Reasons to be optimistic about NY climate summit

Opinion
Multiverse me: Should I care about my other selves?

Life

Multiverse me: Should I care about my other selves?

Features
Tumour traps: How to arrest cancer as it spreads

Health

Tumour traps: How to arrest cancer as it spreads

Features
Cosmic ray blitz: Space invaders that fry electronics

Space

Cosmic ray blitz: Space invaders that fry electronics

Features
Behind the smile: What dolphins really think

Life

Behind the smile: What dolphins really think

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Life in the multiverse means endless possibilities

Life

Life in the multiverse means endless possibilities

What if...? Whether or not we live in the best of all possible worlds, the multiverse can help us make the best decisions in this one

Opinion

Earth

Reasons to be optimistic about NY climate summit

Opinion

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<i>Finding Nemo</i> is real: Clownfish make epic sea journeys

Earth

Finding Nemo is real: Clownfish make epic sea journeys

An Oman anemonefish, retired from long voyages It looks like Pixar got it half right. Clownfish really do make epic journeys of hundreds of kilometres, much like in Finding Nemo , but it is the larvae that migrate, not the adults. And they seem to do it purely by accident. Clownfish are a group of …

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Earth

Global population may boom well beyond the year 2050

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Life

Zoologger: Ants fight dirty in turf war with spiders

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Life

Stricter rules will thwart Japan's whaling attempts

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Health

Epilepsy gives woman compulsion to write poems

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Earth

Looming quakes may be betrayed by groundwater changes

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Scotland's scientists breathe easier after No vote

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Physics

Einstein makes an appearance in superheavy chemistry

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Free will persists (even if your brain made you do it)

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Space

US probe enters Mars orbit, Indian craft close behind

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Earth

UN ready for climate change talks in New York

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Space

Ripples from dawn of creation vanish in a puff of dust

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Earth

Wind causing most of temperature rise in north-west US

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Health

Development goals 2.0: focus on premature deaths

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Space

Private flights may make space station more expensive

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Health

World wakes up to Ebola as cases set to top 1 million

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60 Seconds

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Space

CubeSat craze could create space debris catastrophe

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Life

Modified aubergines could transform farming in India

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Life

Hackathon aims to invent breast pumps that don't suck

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Technology

Air-chaeological drones search for ancient treasures

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Technology

Wireless charger powers up iPhone in your pocket

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Technology

Chatter tracker helps design the perfect office

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Technology

Buttonmasher: Gaming bots learn from how we play

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Life

NIH in bold move to fight gender bias in research

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Space

Water found in atmosphere of exo-Neptune

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Health

Make tough tasks seem easier by zapping the brain

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Opinion

Beat temptation with the marshmallow psychologist

Life

Beat temptation with the marshmallow psychologist

We need willpower to resist our desire for instant gratification, but first we need to know our enemy, says Walter Mischel

Opinion

Earth

Chagos marine reserve polluted by politics

Opinion

Health

Why we weren't ready for Ebola

Opinion

Aperture

Earth's navel: Stare into an eye-wateringly big hole

Earth

Earth's navel: Stare into an eye-wateringly big hole

(Image: Slava Stepanov/gelio.livejournal.com) THE eastern Siberian mining town of Mirny is home to the second-largest excavated hole in the world. The Mir diamond mine operated for 54 years, producing over 10 million carats (2 tonnes) of diamonds per year at its operational peak in the 1960s. It was established in 1957, after geologists discovered traces …

Regulars

Features

Multiverse me: Should I care about my other selves?

Life

Multiverse me: Should I care about my other selves?

Video: Play our game: Choose your destiny in the multiverse Every decision you make may spawn parallel universes where people are suffering because of your choice. Welcome to the quantum moral maze I'm rich. I'm a movie star. I'm king of the world. I'm also poor. I'm homeless. Lots of me are dead. I'm none …

Features

Health

Tumour traps: How to arrest cancer as it spreads

Features

Space

Cosmic ray blitz: Space invaders that fry electronics

Features

Life

Behind the smile: What dolphins really think

Features

Culturelab

How to be genuinely yourself when always online

Life

How to be genuinely yourself when always online

Don't lose yourself in a digital world (Image: Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos) If you want to be free in a digital age, must you switch off your computer, ask two new books, The End of Absence and The Glass Cage WHAT is it like to be alive at the moment? How is our sense of self …

CultureLab

Earth

How air conditioning overwhelmed its hothead haters

CultureLab

More

Is there a cure for adjunctivitis in university jobs?

Is there a cure for adjunctivitis in university jobs?

"You can't negotiate a seat at the table, you can't negotiate respect" (Image: iStock) An increasing number of university professors are hired as poorly paid adjuncts. Can unionization improve pay and working conditions? Finding a professor on an academic campus should be easy. But at institutions across the country, ranging from small community colleges to …

Careers

Regulars

Ig Nobel prize for watching dogs urinate

Mind

Ig Nobel prize for watching dogs urinate

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more FEEDBACK'S favourite awards, the Ig Nobel prizes , were handed out on 18 September at Harvard University by Marc Abrahams , editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. The prizes honour research that makes you laugh, then think: this year, …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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