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New Scientist

Issue: 17/07/2010

Ref: NS170710

Availability: 87 in stock.

No. 2769

 

• Why biology should inform social policy

  Editorial p3

  When it comes to tackling the most ingrained problems of modern society, politicians could learn much from biological motivations

• Without candour, we can't trust climate science

  Editorial p3

  The three reports on climategate fall short of what is needed to rebuild public confidence

• Climate scientists respond to 'climategate' report

  News > Upfront p4

  It's time to abandon the black-and-white fiction that human-induced climate change is fact or conspiracy, they say

• Smoke detector isotope to power robotic space missions

  News > Upfront p4

  The European Space Agency wants a radioactive isotope commonly used in smoke alarms to power its robotic spacecraft to the outer solar system

• Final ruling on controversial diabetes drug

  News > Upfront pp4-5

  US regulators have decided not to withdraw the popular diabetes drug Avandia from the market over concerns over risks of heart problems

• 60 Seconds

  News > 60 Seconds p5

  Support for post-traumatic veterans, nine diet pill flops, smuggled scaly anteaters, and more

• Cholesterol screening for US children could save lives

  News > Upfront p5

  A third of children in the US who are at risk of heart disease later in life due to high cholesterol will be missed under current screening guidelines

• Deepwater wellhead gets new top hat

  News > Upfront p5

  The US Gulf coast is waiting on tenterhooks to find out if the Deepwater Horizon oil leak has finally been halted

• Fish certification scheme shows its true colours

  News > Upfront p5

  When you see a blue label at the fishmonger, you needn't worry about whether the "sustainable Alaska salmon" really came from depleted Atlantic stocks

• Heart of darkness could explain sun mysteries

  News > This Week pp6-7

  The centre of our star may be made of dark matter, which could be cooling down the core

• Want to get off to sleep? Ask your astrocytes nicely

  News > This Week p7

  Cells previously dismissed as minor players in the brain may actually regulate when we fall asleep

• Let there be night, for wildlife's sake

  News > This Week pp8-9

  Light pollution subtly interferes with the growth, behaviour and survival of many nocturnal species – not just those that hit the headlines

• Quantum entanglement holds together life's blueprint

  News > This Week p9

  The double helix shape of DNA may be down to the quantum entanglement of its base pairs

• 'Cuddle chemical' eases symptoms of schizophrenia

  News > This Week p10

  Nasal sprays containing the hormone oxytocin have helped people with schizophrenia

• Reconstructed: Archimedes's flaming steam cannon

  News > This Week p10

  Archimedes may have built a cannon powered by sun-reflecting mirrors to hurl flaming projectiles at invading Roman forces

• Bit of a crybaby? Blame your serotonin levels

  News > This Week p11

  People with low serotonin levels are more prone to crying. The finding may explain why people on antidepressants sometimes report "emotional blunting"

• Chew on this: thank cooking for your big brain

  News > This Week p12

  The amount of time our ancestors spent chewing our food lends support to the possibility that cooked meals made us human

• Law of hurricane power discovered

  News > In Brief p14

  The intensity of hurricanes follows a simple power law – a finding that could help us predict how they will respond to climate change

• Single-star count ups odds of aliens

  News > In Brief p14

  Solitary suns like ours are not as rare as we thought, raising the chance that there are other planets where life has evolved

• Tyrannosaurs: history's most fearsome… scavengers?

  News > In Brief p14

  The terrible lizards were happy to scavenge easy meat if it came their way, tooth marks on a Mongolian fossil reveal

• Depression makes the world look dull

  News > In Brief p15

  Nerve signals from the eye show people with depression are less able to perceive contrast. The finding could be used to help diagnose the condition

• Mongooses who can, teach

  News > In Brief p15

  Mongoose pups learn how to break bird eggs by watching their teenage elders – the first evidence that young wild animals learn the ropes by imitation

• Soaring Arctic temperatures – a warning from history

  News > In Brief p15

  With carbon dioxide levels close to our own, the Arctic of the Pliocene epoch may have warmed much more than previously thought

• Brain implants evolved to use less energy

  Technology > News p17

  A genetic algorithm has reduced the power demands of brain implants, and thus the need for operations to replace their batteries

• Hackers give themselves away with malicious searches

  Technology > News p17

  A new tool turns the tables on hackers by using the search queries they have conducted to find vulnerable websites

• Picture puzzles separate human from machine

  Technology > News p17

  A tool for hiding images within larger pictures could provide a neat way of distinguishing between people and bots online

• Artificial gut frees sewage-eating robot from humans

  Technology > News pp18-19

  A biomass-powered robot with a digestive system shows it can operate for a week without human help, by feeding, watering and cleansing itself

• Silicon chip speed record broken on a lead-coated track

  Technology > News p19

  An atom-thick coating of lead allows electrons to travel around a silicon chip 20 times faster than usual

• Blood spatter model to help crime scene investigation

  Technology > Feature p20

  Software could improve the speed and accuracy of blood ballistics interpretation at a crime scene

• Cheap drones could replace search-and-rescue choppers

  Technology > News p20

  Uncrewed craft are best known as search-and-destroy weapons, but the technology could also help people who get into trouble in hard-to-reach places

• An evil atmosphere is forming around geoengineering

  Comment and Analysis pp22-23

  Right-wing think tanks that deny climate change is even happening are advocating climate engineering to fix it. Don't heed them, warns Clive Hamilton

• Astronaut for hire: Space tourism will help science

  Opinion > Interview p23

  Brian Shiro, president of Astronauts4Hire, explains how the commercial space race is changing what it means to be an astronaut

• Autism activism

  Letters p24

  In reference to Brian Barry's letter, I am quite surprised to discover that the spectrum of autism does not just include savants, but also...

• Dream on

  Letters p24

  For people with narcolepsy, the lucid dreaming for which Jessica Hamzelou strives can be an undesirable and sometimes frightening intrusion into normal daily life (12...

• Public science

  Letters p24

  Tom Wakeford and Jackie Haq discuss the dangers of keeping private the debate into the consequences of artificial life research (26 June, p 26...

• Enigma Number 1604

  Opinion > Enigma p24

• Medical empiricism

  Letters pp24-25

  When discussing the measures to which some people will resort in searching for a cure for autism, Jim Giles inadvertently highlights a widespread problem in...

• Dark matters

  Letters p25

  Kate McAlpine clearly explained the issues surrounding the standard model of particle physics (22 May, p 40...

• Mitochondrial link

  Letters p25

  While reading Andy Coghlan's article on how reawakened mitochondria can help fight cancer (15 May, p 6), it occurred to me that mitochondria might...

• Plastic fantastic

  Letters p25

  James Mitchell Crow's article on decaying plastics seemed to only stress the downside of this phenomenon (19 June, p 42...

• Practical art

  Letters p25

  In your special report on collaborations between art and science, David S. Berman writes that "a successful art-science work. . . should impact on people in"...

• Quantum geography

  Letters p25

  By implying a truly macroscopic "superposition" of the Austrian Erwin Schrödinger with the German Werner Heisenberg, Michael Brooks's "Rise of the quantum machines"...

• Out with pink and blue: Don't foster the gender divide

  Opinion > The Big Idea pp26-27

  In a world that needs nimble brains and sophisticated thinking, we must junk stereotypes about boys and girls once and for all, says Lise Eliot

• Veggieworld: Why eating greens won't save the planet

  Features > Cover Story pp28-31

  Stop eating meat, save the environment – so the argument goes. But what would really happen if we all went cold turkey?

• Laughter's secrets: No funny business

  Features > Feature p32

  We don't laugh at jokes, but at other people

• The secrets of laughter

  Features > Feature p32

  We all enjoy a good laugh. But why? New Scientist reveals how laughter makes you friendlier, healthier, safer and sexier

• Laughter's secrets: The sound of a happy ape

  Features > Feature p34

  Animal laughter is very different to ours – if it even exists

• Laughter's secrets: GSOH not required

  Features > Feature pp34-35

  Why do women laugh at men's jokes?

• Laughter's secrets: The best medicine?

  Features > Feature p35

  Laughing may be good for you, but good cheer only goes so far

• Laughter's secrets: Contagious chortling

  Features > Feature p36

  Laughter is irresistibly and inexplicably catching

• Laughter's secrets: How to make a computer laugh

  Features > Feature p36

  Take our test to help acoustician Trevor Cox crack the secret of synthetic laughter

• O₂h no! Is our oxygen running out?

  Features > Feature pp37-39

  The evidence is in: the gas we breathe is becoming scarcer – and we're to blame. What does that mean for life on Earth?

• Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

  Features > Feature pp40-43

  They're often branded as thoughtless and irresponsible, but teenage mothers and deadbeat dads may be making the best of their bad situations

• Malaria, the killer that won't go away

  Opinion > Books & Arts p44

  The Fever: How malaria has ruled humankind for 500,000 years by Sonia Shah is a diverse survey of the past and present career of a formidable killer

• A psychologist inside the mind of suicide bombers

  Opinion > Books & Arts p45

  Ariel Merari has talked to suicide bombers and those who organise their attacks, and found they are very different kinds of people

• Strange facts from the far side of research

  Opinion > Books & Arts p46

  Rik Kuiper and Tonie Mudde present a collection of oddball scientific findings in Dunk Your Biscuit Horizontally

• The discovery of energy

  Opinion > Books & Arts p46

  Jennifer Coopersmith explains the concept of energy through the history of its discovery in Energy, the Subtle Concept

• When the ice caps melt

  Opinion > Books & Arts p46

  The Flooded Earth: Our future in a world without ice caps by Peter Ward explains how the Earth may be inundated sooner than we thought

• Pray now to get better yesterday

  Feedback p64

  How you could get Frankenstein unwritten, extra dimensions found in an ultrasound scan, the law of socks, and more

• Eyes down

  The Last Word > Last Word Answer p65

• Ducking the issue

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p65

• Malt teaser

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p65

• Pooling resources

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p65