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This week's magazine

5 February 2022

Issue 3372

New Scientist issue 3372 cover
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Editor's picks

The Super Pit is Australia???s largest open pit gold mine, producing around 850,000 ounces of the precious metal annually.

Earth

Geology needs to reinvent itself as we fight against climate change

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Do we create space-time? A new perspective on the fabric of reality

Physics

Do we create space-time? A new perspective on the fabric of reality

Features
Interoception: This ‘sixth sense’ could be key to better mental health

Health

Interoception: This ‘sixth sense’ could be key to better mental health

Features
Christopher Jackson interview: How geologists can fight climate change

Environment

Christopher Jackson interview: How geologists can fight climate change

Features

Table of contents

Leaders

The Super Pit is Australia???s largest open pit gold mine, producing around 850,000 ounces of the precious metal annually.

Earth

Geology needs to reinvent itself as we fight against climate change

"We learn geology the morning after the earthquake," the 19th-century essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote . The quote has a pithy resonance as we grapple with the fallout of our inaction on so many fronts, from pandemic prevention to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Applied to geology itself, it is a case of …

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human fossils

Humans

160,000-year-old fossil may be the first Denisovan skull we've found

A partial skull from China represents the earliest human with a “modern†brain size. It could represent an unknown group of ancient humans, or perhaps one of the enigmatic Denisovans

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Life

Some bee colonies have to kill thousands of ‘selfish’ wannabe queens

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Space

Strange gravitational wave echoes may let us probe dark matter

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Space

A strange object in space is blasting out radio waves every 18 minutes

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Technology

Robot performs keyhole surgery on pigs with little help from doctors

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Health

Frogs regrow amputated legs after treatment with a chemical cocktail

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Life

Hibernating ground squirrels recycle urine to maintain their muscles

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Health

Cancer drug could one day help cure HIV by waking up dormant viruses

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Environment

How a Cotswolds river may show the way to clean up England's waterways

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Health

Vitamin D supplements really do reduce risk of autoimmune disease

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Space

Rare intergalactic supernova may have been seen outside the Milky Way

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Life

Whiteflies have acquired dozens of genes from plants they eat

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Technology

What does Google's new cookie replacement mean for online privacy?

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Life

Migrating birds may use slope of Earth’s magnetic field as ‘stop sign’

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Health

Gene variant found in centenarians appears to slow the ageing process

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Mind

We 'click' better with others when conversations flow more quickly

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Technology

Birthday wishes inadvertently give away private information online

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Space

Don’t Look Up: Could we save Earth from a comet in just six months?

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Health

What you need to know about the fast-spreading BA.2 omicron variant

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Environment

Extreme marine heatwaves are now normal for the world's oceans

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Space

We may now know why Uranus and Neptune are different shades of blue

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Life

Giant pandas more likely to reject cubs after artificial insemination

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Life

1 in 3 birds tested at an Australian animal hospital have chlamydia

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Physics

Game theory shows how people crowd on trains at rush hour

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Environment

Lightning flash measuring 768 kilometres is the longest ever recorded

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Environment

UK's spring flowers are blooming a month early due to climate change

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Analysis

A driverless car that went rogue could be a taste of the robo uprising

Technology

A driverless car that went rogue could be a taste of the robo uprising

The recent case of a driverless car that tried to escape its handlers might make us laugh, but it also warns us about what could happen when AI is given a "body", writes Annalee Newitz

Comment

Environment

The way we are going about saving coral reefs is all wrong

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Aperture

New penguin colonies not previously known to science have been found in the Antarctic by researchers from Stony Brook University. These include a new gentoo penguin colony never before recorded at Andersson Island, on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula. This is one of the southmost records for Gentoo penguins breeding on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula, where until recently it was far too icy for the more temperate Gentoo penguin to successfully raise chicks. Before this discovery, only one solitary Gentoo nest had been found this far south, but researchers have now discovered a colony of 75 gentoo nests.

Life

New colony of gentoo penguins discovered on Antarctic Peninsula

https://youtu.be/ds6Wb-fmUNo THIS is a newly discovered colony of gentoo penguins on Andersson Island off the Antarctic Peninsula, photographed by Tomás Munita . The animals and their 75 nests were found by researchers from Stony Brook University in New York during a Greenpeace expedition to the frigid region. The team is surveying , and filming , …

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Features

Do we create space-time? A new perspective on the fabric of reality

Physics

Do we create space-time? A new perspective on the fabric of reality

For the first time, it is possible to see the quantum world from multiple points of view at once. This hints at something very strange – that reality only takes shape when we interact with each other

Features

Environment

Christopher Jackson interview: How geologists can fight climate change

Features

Health

Interoception: This ‘sixth sense’ could be key to better mental health

Features

Culture

Horizon Zero Dawn

Technology

These are the games to look out for in 2022

This year sees no shortage of post-apocalyptic games, but light relief is available courtesy of Star Trek and a robot-loving cat, says Jacob Aron

Culture

Environment

Climate fiction has come of age – and these fabulous books show why

Culture

Humans

How the World Really Works review: The tech that underpins society

Culture

Humans

Don't miss: A rare chance to see a coveted natural history book

Culture

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.

Puzzle #153: Can you work out the code for Tom Tightwad's safe?

#153 Tightwad's safe Tom Tightwad keeps his money in a safe, the code for which is a 10-digit number that uses every digit between 0 and 9. Fearful of forgetting the code, Tom wrote it on the front of the safe, but disguised it. He wrote the first five digits along the top of a …

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Humans

Protect your plants from cold snaps with home-made cloches

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Tom Gauld on penguins that take humans for a ride

Regulars

Twisteddoodles: The pitfalls of quick-and-dirty pipetting

Regulars

Regulars

In the wild, robot vacuum cleaners have no natural predators

Humans

In the wild, robot vacuum cleaners have no natural predators

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

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Letters

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