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This week's magazine

2 April 2016

Issue 3067

New Scientist issue 3067 cover
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Editor's picks

New Scientist logo

Technology

Getting stuff wrong is key to smarter artificial intelligence

Opinion
two galaxies

Space

Our galaxy's impossible collision could break gravity

Features
stammer artwork

Health

Stuttering isn't only psychological – and a cure might be coming

Features
supercomputer

Technology

To make computers better, let them get sloppy

Features
pig 3

Life

Human versus pig: Can we outwit the hog hordes?

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

Craig Venter

Life

Breakthrough in synthetic biology is far from 'playing God'

The creation of a cell with the minimal number of genes necessary for life is to be applauded - mostly for what it tells us about our ignorance

Opinion

Technology

Getting stuff wrong is key to smarter artificial intelligence

Opinion

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This 3000 year old scroll survived Vesuvius's eruption

Technology

Lead ink from scrolls may unlock library destroyed by Vesuvius

This 3000-year-old scroll survived Vesuvius's eruption Lead often gets a bad press. But its discovery in ancient Graeco-Roman ink could make it easier to read an early form of publishing - precious scrolls buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Some 800 scrolls, part of the classical world’s best-surviving library, have tantalised …

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Life

Cute prairie dogs are serial killers savaging ground squirrels

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Earth

Woodpeckers carry wood-eating fungi that may help them dig holes

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Space

Ghostly galaxies are light on stars but heavy on dark matter

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Space

Ceres surprises with water ice and colourful bright spots

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Life

‘Fearless’ twins reveal how our bodies affect our emotions

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Health

Explosive road rage-like anger linked to parasite spread by cats

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Earth

Pilot plant to turn CO2 into house parts and paving stones

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Space

Moon’s lack of water down to ancient shift in its spin axis

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Life

Brains of elderly people who exercise look 10 years younger

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Space

Gecko Gripper blasts off to help design space-crawling robots

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Technology

Security missed Brussels bombs – but could sensors spot them?

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Life

The evolution of the nose: why is the human hooter so big?

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Life

Artificial cell designed in lab reveals genes essential to life

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Health

Zika arrived in the Americas two years earlier than thought

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Space

Asteroid barrage may have birthed a short-lived ocean on Mars

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Physics

New maths proof shows how to stack oranges in 24 dimensions

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Life

Common UK migrating birds are arriving earlier or leaving later

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Technology

First games for Oculus Rift reveal your new virtual playground

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Health

Brain-shocking therapy may work by boosting calcium in the brain

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Life

Interstellar cloud could have wiped out the dinosaurs

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Space

Japanese Hitomi satellite falls silent after taking a tumble

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Health

NHS England backtracks from rolling out HIV-prevention drug

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Earth

60 Seconds

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Technology

Inside the shape-shifting VR factory of manufacturing's future

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Technology

One Per Cent

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Earth

Unexpected Antarctic melt could trigger 2-metre sea level rise

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Opinion

US president Barack Obama meeting Cuban president Raúl Castro

Humans

Obama wants scientific collaboration to boost US-Cuba relations

The history of easing political hostility through research cooperation explains why the US president is in Cuba promoting closer ties, says Michael Clegg

Opinion

Earth

Should the UK pull plug on Hinkley Point nuclear power station?

Opinion

Health

If we want to breathe clean air, we need to fight for it

Opinion

Technology

I used robots to help save drowning refugees off the Greek coast

Opinion

Life

Small is beautiful: Why a synthetic minimal genome is a big deal

Opinion

Aperture

Zika virus

Health

This is what the Zika virus looks like close up – probably

HARD to believe that something so beautiful can have such a devastating effect. This is what the infamous Zika virus looks like – probably. Zika, now sweeping the Americas, was declared a global health emergency earlier this year because of the suspected link between the virus and babies born with microcephaly . Ivan Konstantinov from …

Regulars

Features

two galaxies

Space

Our galaxy's impossible collision could break gravity

The ballistics of galactic shrapnel show that the Milky Way has already crashed into its giant neighbour, Andromeda – but if that's right, physics is wrong

Features

Health

Stuttering isn't only psychological – and a cure might be coming

Features

Life

Human versus pig: Can we outwit the hog hordes?

Features

Technology

To make computers better, let them get sloppy

Features

Culturelab

Charles Foster

Life

Being a beast: What happens when people live as other animals?

Getting under the skin of another species is impossible – but as two new books show, that shouldn’t stop us trying

CultureLab

Humans

The Myth of the Moral Brain: Could a drug make us nicer people?

CultureLab

Regulars

Big Ben poppers

Space

Feedback: Poppers burn a hole in the UK's blanket drugs ban

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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