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This week's magazine

10 September 2016

Issue 3090

New Scientist issue 3090 cover
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Editor's picks

workers watering tree nursery

Earth

A wall of trees across the Sahara is cool – but we don't need it

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protester

Technology

AI can join the fight back against the post-truth world

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Poo

Health

Primate labs give us an edge, says China's brain project chief

Features
argue artwork

Technology

Computers that can argue will be satnav for the moral maze

Features
ant bridge

Life

Get inside the collective mind of a genius superorganism

Features
particles artwork 1

Physics

Lessons in reality from particles that don't exist

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

protester

Technology

AI can join the fight back against the post-truth world

Facts are a debased currency in public debate. Technology can drive the pushback by calling out powerful people who peddle flawed arguments

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Two researchers holding up one of the pieces of rock in question. It has a wavy line on it that represents the putative fossil

Life

Ancient rock formations could be oldest fossils on the planet

Allen Nutman and Vickie Bennet with a fossil 3.7 billion years in the making They could be the earliest fossils ever found. Structures discovered in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks in Greenland appear to be evidence of microbes living in a shallow sea on early Earth. The structures, all no more than a few centimetres tall, look like …

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Health

Laser made from human blood could help hunt down tumours

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Health

Superagers with amazing memories have shrink-resistant brains

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Life

Stars burning strangely make life in the multiverse more likely

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Health

Ebola virus has lurked in a man's semen for more than 500 days

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Health

There is now a sixth taste – and it explains why we love carbs

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Life

Superfast evolution could save Tasmanian devils from extinction

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Technology

The threat of robot guards is not enough to stop people stealing

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Technology

Nanobots could swarm like bats to hunt out brain tumours

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Space

Here's what colourful clouds on alien gas giants would look like

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Life

Bees die needlessly as Zika prompts US state to spray pesticide

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Life

Giant panda off endangered list as China’s conservation pays off

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Health

Antidepressant makes bones weaker by slowing down new growth

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Space

Found: Philae lander finally spotted by Rosetta on comet 67P

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Earth

Warming strengthens typhoons that batter Asian coast

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Life

Ants trapped in nuclear bunker are developing their own society

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Health

Air pollution is sending tiny magnetic particles into your brain

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Childhood inflammation raises risk of later bipolar symptoms

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Technology

How to profit from your data and beat Facebook at its own game

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Technology

Smart wristband tracks vital signs to keep truckers moving

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One Per Cent

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Technology

Extremists are turning Twitter and Facebook into theatres of war

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Life

Boom time for whales in the Arctic driven by the loss of sea ice

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Earth

Hurricane Hermine's flood damage was ramped up by climate change

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NASA probe about to leave for asteroid Bennu and bring bits home

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Earth

60 Seconds

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Health

Artificial ovary may boost fertility and postpone the menopause

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Opinion

A map of where Zika is active

Life

US plan to fend off Zika with sterile mosquitoes faces catch-22

A project to unleash genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida to stop Zika could backfire if it ignores public protest and goes ahead, says Jamais Cascio

Opinion

Analysis

An alien spaceship over a city

Life

Spoiler alert: Why strange signals are never really from aliens

Given the wealth of planets in our universe, aliens must be dwelling somewhere, right? Maybe. But we’re never going to get our sci-fi moment, says Jacob Aron

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Health

Time is right for a global ban to end trans fat health scandal

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Earth

A wall of trees across the Sahara is cool – but we don't need it

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Aperture

pharaoh eagle-owl

Life

Swooping pharaoh eagle-owl hunts in the desert

HE'S coming right at you. This striking image of a pharaoh eagle-owl ( Bubo ascalaphus desertorum ) was captured at dawn in dunes of the United Arab Emirates. As well as being found across the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, pairs have been seen nesting on the pyramids of Egypt. The photographer, …

Regulars

Features

ant bridge

Life

Get inside the collective mind of a genius superorganism

The amazing bridges and scaffolds that ants build using their own bodies can teach us a thing or two about robotics, engineering and cooperation

Features

Physics

Lessons in reality from particles that don't exist

Features

Technology

Computers that can argue will be satnav for the moral maze

Features

Health

Primate labs give us an edge, says China's brain project chief

Features

Culture

Time Machine

Physics

Fast forward: How we learned to love time travel

A classic H. G. Wells story and key mathematics made time travel such a popular idea that it fundamentally changed our thinking, argues James Gleick in Time Travel: A history

Culture

Space

Stardate 08092016, Star Trek's birthday mission

Culture

Regulars

lawnmower cartoon

Feedback: Groundskeeper unwittingly triggers doomsday alert

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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