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New Scientist

Issue: 27/02/2010

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No. 2749

Bringing dark matter down to Earth

Editorial p5

We may be able to test modified Newtonian dynamics – an alternative to dark matter theory – in the lab. So let's get on with it!

Honesty is the best policy for climate scientists

Editorial p5

The backlash against climate science reveals a fatigue with exaggerated messages of doom

The joke's on spam

Editorial p5

It used to be a real nuisance – now it's just pathetic

What's hot on NewScientist.com

Editorial > What's hot on NewScientist.com p5

Drug laws hurting cancer patients

News > Upfront p6

Overzealous regulation of opiates is having a painful knock-on effect on eastern Europeans with cancer

Mathematicians offer tip-offs to LAPD

News > Upfront p6

Two new equations describe how crime hotspots form – and what police can do about them

Stop funding homeopathy, say British MPs

News > Upfront p6

The UK's National Health Service is being urged to stop paying for "placebo" remedies

Utah alleges conspiracy on climate change data

News > Upfront p6

The state's House of Representatives has called on the US government not to cut industrial emissions until climate science has been "investigated"

60 Seconds

News > 60 Seconds p7

Hope for peanut allergy sufferers, tackling dengue fever by genetically grounding mosquitoes, immigrant star clusters and more

NASA sets sights on inflatable space stations

News > Upfront p7

The agency reveals plans to develop advanced new technologies, including orbiting balloon-like habitats

Planet-hunting space telescope makes ESA shortlist

News > Upfront p7

The European Space Agency's shortlist of three missions for two launch slots includes PLATO, which would search nearby star systems for signs of life

US menu of eligible stem cells set to lengthen

News > Upfront p7

The US government plans to add lines created from early-stage embryos to the list of human embryonic stem cells that federally funded research can use

Can we trust the IPCC on the big stuff?

News > Special Report pp8-10

As the media scrambles to pick holes in the IPCC's climate impact report, New Scientist checks its headline forecasts for food, water and biodiversity

The real Avatar: ocean bacteria act as 'superorganism'

News > This Week p11

Bacteria in muddy ocean sediments may shuttle energy back and forth via a network of nanowires – a striking parallel with the movie Avatar

Dark matter could meet its nemesis on Earth

News > This Week p14

A spinning disc may be all that is needed to overturn Newton's second law of motion – and could call off the hunt for dark matter

Fight HIV with HIV: 'safe' virus proposed as vaccine

News > This Week p14

The idea was dismissed years ago as too risky a proposition, but a new approach shows promise

Arctic ice arches in peril

News > This Week p15

Dams of ice that usually plug straits leading out of the Arctic Ocean are failing to form, letting sea ice escape to the Atlantic and Pacific

Disease gene blocker sneaks past cell defences

News > This Week p15

RNA interference molecules that can slip into cells with no outside help could speed treatments for diseases such as cancer

Giant quake coming? Feel for Earth tides

News > In Brief p16

Earth tides caused by the pull of the sun and the moon trigger small tremors that may provide advance warning of giant earthquakes

Mouse grows human liver

News > In Brief p16

It acts like a human one and could be used to study malaria, hepatitis and cirrhosis

Star fattens planet and then devours it

News > In Brief p16

A Jupiter-like exoplanet discovered in 2008 is being puffed up by its proximity to the host star and is losing mass in the process

The secret of long life is up in the trees

News > In Brief p16

Tree-dwelling mammals live nearly twice as long as their earth-bound cousins, confirming a long-standing prediction of the biology of ageing

A quiet sun won't save us from global warming

News > In Brief p17

Even if there's a "grand minimum" in the sun's output over the next century, it won't be enough to counter rising temperatures caused by humans

Memory-melting protein is key to fly forgetfulness

News > In Brief p17

If it plays a similar role in mammals, we can look forward to new techniques for memory enhancement or erasure

Ten days to save hearing after deafening sound

News > In Brief p17

A shot of gene therapy was enough to restore dying hair cells in guinea pigs – if administered soon enough after the damage

Warmer seas may rob corals and rainforests of clouds

News > In Brief p17

Just 2 °C more and reefs stop producing a cloud-seeding gas, which could leave corals hotter still and rainforests drier

Magnet magic puts phone control in the air

Technology > News p19

Using a hand-held magnet to interact with a cellphone's in-built compass can allow users to control their phone with natural gestures

Robots to rescue soldiers

Technology > News p19

The US military is seeking ideas on how to build an autonomous robot that can rescue injured personnel from the battlefield

Smart CCTV raises bush-fire alarm

Technology > News p19

An early warning system for fires detects the first signs of danger by recognising a flame's telltale colour and flicker in a video feed

Wireless speed freaks set to leave Wi-Fi standing

Technology > Feature pp20-21

Can Wi-Fi rise to the challenge of super-fast, high-definition downloads or are its days as the "killer app" of connectivity numbered?

Legal team hack Xbox memory for defence evidence

Technology > News p21

Investigators have found a way to use software vulnerabilities to tease forensic evidence from the games console

Back to the drawing board with missile-beating laser

Technology > News p22

The Airborne Laser recently blasted two missiles out of the sky, but the Pentagon is starting again from scratch to make a practical aerial weapon

Cellphone traces reveal you're so predictable

Technology > News p22

The traces left by cellphones show that our travel patterns are highly predictable, perhaps offering planners a way to improve infrastructure

There's no war to fight over global warming

Comment and Analysis pp24-25

How should beleaguered climate scientists advance their cause? They shouldn't, argues veteran meteorologist Alan Thorpe

Paul Raffaele: Meeting (almost) every great ape

Opinion > Interview p25

The adventure writer found absent humans more frightening than a half-tonne gorilla during his quest to see all the great ape species left in the wild

Dilution debate

Letters p26

Martin Robbins reports on a demonstration where over 300 activists "overdosed" by taking a whole bottle of a homeopathic remedy based on arsenic (30 January...

Enigma Number 1584

Opinion > Enigma p26

Consumer emissions

Letters pp26-27

In his article on UK carbon emissions (6 February, p 11), Phil McKenna misinterprets our findings. The article implies that the UK's Department for...

For the record

Letters p27

• In our discussion of packaging overkill, it the was packaging-to-goods ratio of the empty box Geoff Robinson received that was infinite, not the...

Genes swap

Letters p27

Mark Buchanan suggests that there might have been a stage between the emergence of a universal genetic code and full-blown Darwinian evolution (23 January...

Hot rocks, hot topic

Letters p27

Nick Lane's article on the origins of oxygen on Earth misses key points when discussing the fossil record (6 February, p 36...

No scratch, do sniff

Letters p27

Clare Wilson mentions the large volume of research dedicated to the suppression of armpit odour (19 December 2009, p 54...

Out of data

Letters p27

In speculating that we might lose vital knowledge if civilisation were to collapse, your authors missed the very real threat that it might happen in...

The pheromone myth: Sniffing out the truth

Opinion > The Big Idea pp28-29

Many scientists have long believed these chemical signals dictate human behaviour – but there's no evidence they actually exist, says Richard L. Doty

From ocean to ozone: Earth's nine life-support systems

Features > Cover Story pp30-35

Climate is only one of our planet's support systems – to keep them all off the critical list, we have to work out how much punishment they can take

Earth's nine life-support systems: Acid oceans

Features > Cover Story p32

More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means more is absorbed by the oceans, creating carbonic acid – bad news for animals with shells

Earth's nine life-support systems: Ozone depletion

Features > Cover Story p32

With most of the culprit chemicals now banned, the worst of the danger has passed – but it has not entirely vanished

Earth's nine life-support systems: Fresh water

Features > Cover Story pp32-33

A quarter of the world's river systems no longer reach the ocean for at least part of the year. This is drying out swathes of the landscape

Earth's nine life-support systems: Biodiversity

Features > Cover Story p33

Individual species may not matter much on their own, but collectively they form ecosystems that provide a range of vital "ecosystem services"

Earth's nine life-support systems: Nitrogen and phosphorus cycles

Features > Cover Story pp33-34

We fix around 121 million tonnes of nitrogen a year, far more than nature does – and nature cannot cope

Earth's nine life-support systems: Land use

Features > Cover Story p34

Half the world's tropical rainforests are gone, and large areas of grasslands once open to wildlife are now fenced in for livestock

Earth's nine life-support systems: Climate change

Features > Cover Story pp34-35

Every degree of warming caused directly by CO₂ is amplified by feedback processes that could drive temperatures much higher

Earth's nine life-support systems: Aerosol loading

Features > Cover Story p35

We have more than doubled the global concentration of aerosols such as soot since pre-industrial times

Earth's nine life-support systems: Chemical pollution

Features > Cover Story p35

There are approaching 100,000 different human-made chemical compounds in use around the world today, and many of them harm humans and wildlife

Dirty tricks of the egg and sperm race

Features > Feature pp36-39

You might think the battle of the sexes is over once mating occurs – but it's just shifted to a new, microscopic arena

Inside the biggest tornado hunt in history

Features > Feature pp40-43

Where do twisters come from? New Scientist rides shotgun with the storm chasers to find out

Spamdemic: Tracking the plague of junk mail

Features > Feature pp44-45

From Monty Python to mass-mailing misery, New Scientist charts the unstoppable rise of spam

The mystery of the silent aliens

Opinion > Books & Arts pp46-47

As SETI approaches its 50th anniversary, three books tackle the question of why we have not yet found evidence of alien intelligence

A gigantic, muddled, jigsaw-puzzle view of science

Opinion > Books & Arts p48

From HIV denial to string theory and from postmodernism to petamachines, In Praise of Science by Sander Bais is a coffee-table love letter to science

Explosive vomit and skin eruptions: arsenic's heyday

Opinion > Books & Arts p48

Not for the faint-hearted, The Arsenic Century by James Whorton tells how countless Victorian unfortunates met an agonising end thanks to the poison

Words set to music, with a few notes missing

Opinion > Books & Arts p48

In The Music Instinct, Philip Ball has gone further than anyone in challenging the dictum that writing about music is like dancing about architecture