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New Scientist

Issue: 04/09/2010

Ref: NS040910

Availability: 77 in stock.

No.2776

 

• Defuse this oil time bomb

  Editorial p5

  We must deal now with the pollution legacy of the second world war

• Time for Rajendra Pachauri to go

  Editorial p5

  The departure of the IPCC head might give sceptics a propaganda coup but would strengthen the body in the long run

• Climate panel must 'fundamentally reform' to survive

  News > Upfront p6

  The IPCC must change how it operates if it is to regain the public's trust, according to a major review

• New Orleans: are the new defences tough enough?

  News > Upfront p6

  A $14.5 billion revamp of New Orleans's flood defences is almost finished, but some say the measures aren't tough and comprehensive enough

• Swine flu drug in narcolepsy probe

  News > Upfront pp6-7

  Fifteen children in Finland were diagnosed with narcolepsy after receiving swine flu vaccine – but it could have occurred by chance

• 60 Seconds

  News > 60 Seconds p7

  How Ötzi the iceman was buried, smoke in baby stools, the bread genome rises, and more

• Can US Congress overturn stem-cell funding freeze?

  News > Upfront p7

  Congress could find a way around the shock court ruling that has frozen US government support for work on human embryonic stem cells

• Two Chinese satellites rendezvous in orbit

  News > Upfront p7

  A new Chinese satellite seems to have nudged another orbiting probe - perhaps paving the way for a space station, or possibly attacks on other satellites

• Void that is truly empty solves dark energy puzzle

  News > This Week p10

  Forget vacuums fizzing with particle activity: a new calculation shows this strange notion isn't necessary after all

• Tortoise banquet: Remains of the oldest feast found

  News > This Week p11

  A cave in Israel has given up the secrets of humans' earliest feasts, showing that they were occurring 2500 years earlier than previously thought

• Why your brain flips over visual illusions

  News > This Week p14

  What happens in your brain when you view illusions in which two separate images can be seen?

• Weird water lurking inside giant planets

  News > This Week p15

  A form of water deep within Uranus and Neptune may behave like a liquid and a solid simultaneously, explaining the planets' bizarre magnetic fields

• 'Brain training' may just hide symptoms of dementia

  News > In Brief p16

  People who engage in mental challenges may stave off symptoms of Alzheimer's, but decline more quickly if subsequently diagnosed

• How animals evolved personalities

  News > In Brief p16

  Being social could drive the evolution of personality differences

• Oxytocin fails 'trust elixir' test

  News > In Brief p16

  The hormone does make people more trusting, but not gullible, as many internet vendors would have us believe

• Tobacco plants outsmart hungry caterpillars

  News > In Brief p16

  When the tobacco hornworm caterpillar munches on its favourite food, it inadvertently helps the plant call in a predatory bug

• Collagen corneas restore damaged sight

  News > In Brief p17

  A collagen implant replacing a damaged cornea anchors itself in place after becoming filled with the recipient's own cells

• Second super-fast flip of Earth's poles found

  News > In Brief p17

  Theory says the Earth's magnetic field can't flip in just a few years, yet for the second time evidence has been found of it happening in the past

• Tilting stars may explain backwards planets

  News > In Brief p17

  Planets that orbit their star in the opposite direction to the star's spin may not be victims of violence – their star may simply have flipped over

• Trojan asteroids make planetary scientist lose sleep

  News > In Brief p17

  The sizes of asteroids near Jupiter spell trouble for the leading theory of how our solar system evolved

• LED-studded skirt makes a bright fashion statement

  Technology > News p19

  You'll light up the room in a skirt coated with LEDs that illuminate as you move

• Mobile chargers could keep electric cars juiced up

  Technology > News p19

  Mobile charging units that respond to in-car sensors could ensure that electric car owners never need fear getting stranded

• Shape-shifting robot compensates for lost limb

  Technology > News p19

  A modular quadruped, built from a group of identical robot modules, learns to find new walking styles to cope with the malfunction of a single unit

• Tech heavyweights set to move music to the cloud

  Technology > News pp20-21

  Apple and Google promise the next revolution in digital entertainment – instant access to a vast music library, straight from the cloud

• Smart USB speakers pump up the volume from laptops

  Technology > News p21

  By storing power for when it's needed most, speakers that plug into a USB port can produce high-quality sound without the need for mains power

• Computer games may be spawning reckless drivers

  Technology > News p22

  Driving-based computer games like Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon may be encouraging teens to drive recklessly when they take to the roads for real

• Nano-engineered cotton promises to wipe out water bugs

  Technology > News p22

  Cotton impregnated with silver nanowires and carbon nanotubes could provide a cheap and effective method of purifying water in remote locations

• What can deliver snakebite medicine where it's needed?

  Comment and Analysis pp24-25

  Snakebites kill hundreds of thousands, so the scarcity of proper treatment is a global tragedy. Time to bring in the law, say Nick Brown and Dev Kevat

• Robot car passenger: On the road to China, no driver

  Opinion > Interview p25

  Driverless cars are safer and they are the future, says Alberto Broggi, leader of an autonomous-vehicle expedition from Italy to China

• Basic arithmetic

  Letters p26

  Richard Elwes reports on Harvey Friedman's fascinating work on incompleteness in Boolean relation theory, but it is quite a stretch to extend his work...

• No profit in fever

  Letters p26

  Your article on the role of fever in fighting infection (31 July, p 42) missed one of the most interesting chapters in this saga: in...

• Enigma Number 1611

  Opinion > Enigma p26

• Helium hopes rise

  Letters pp26-27

  Robert Richardson warns us of the perils of squandering our limited helium resources (14 August, p 29...

• Ancient acoustics

  Letters p27

  Trevor Cox's discussion of the acoustics of ancient theatres reminded me of a trip to Greece with my medical student colleagues (21 August, p...

• Defining species

  Letters p27

  Thomas Frost criticised using as a criterion for species membership the ability to interbreed to produce fertile offspring (31 July, p 27...

• Dino frills

  Letters p27

  In his article on morphing dinosaurs, Graham Lawton discusses possible functions of the triceratops's neck frill, such as it being a signal of maturity...

• Elephant analogy

  Letters p27

  The simile comparing gravity to an elephant, unaware of quantum fluctuations, or "microbes", on its skin (15 May, p 9) appeared in the same issue...

• Evolving physics

  Letters p27

  Sebastian Hayes suggests in his letter that the laws of physics might evolve over time (26 June, p 30). Some versions of this idea have...

• For the record

  Letters p27

  • The correct reference for the paper by Rouzbeh Allahverdi and others on universal inflation (21 August, p 6), is Physical Review D, DOI: 10. 1103...

• Moving the Earth

  Letters p27

  Matt Kaplan writes about the effect that meteors could have on the Earth's geology, suggesting that the Deccan Traps were caused by an impact...

• The natural selection of leaders

  Opinion > The Big Idea pp28-29

  Are leaders born or made? Evolution may be throwing us a curve ball when it comes to picking them in the modern world, says Anjana Ahuja

• Beyond communication: the other use for language

  Features > Cover Story pp30-33

  You think more words than you speak – perhaps because language really does shape the way we navigate the world

• Why wartime wrecks are slicking time bombs

  Features > Feature pp34-37

  Millions of tons of oil lost in sunken ships is threatening a new environmental disaster

• Junkie food: Tastes your brain can't resist

  Features > Feature pp38-41

  Is that cupcake an innocent indulgence? Or your next hit? We're finding that a sweet tooth makes you just as much an addict as snorting cocaine

• Fighting back against neurosexism

  Opinion > Books & Arts p42

  Are differences between men and women hard-wired in the brain? Two new books argue that there's no solid scientific evidence for this popular notion

• Forgotten heroes and villains, triumphs and disasters

  Opinion > Books & Arts p43

  Boffinology by Justin Pollard gives the quirky, smelly, deceitful, charming and sometimes spine-chilling details behind historic moments of genius

• How calculus will beat the zombies

  Opinion > Books & Arts p43

  In The Calculus Diaries,  Jennifer Ouellette embraces calculus as an art while relating its colourful history and surprising applications

• The cloud-shaped future of life online

  Opinion > Books & Arts p43

  Christopher Barnatt paints a fascinating, if relentlessly optimistic, picture of our online future in A Brief Guide To Cloud Computing

• Whirling water forgets its nasty past

  Feedback p60

  Crystals that make water pure – yes, homeopathically pure – how to know a website by the ads it keeps, quantum detergent, and more

• Signal failure

  The Last Word > Last Word Answer p61

• Curdled coffee

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p61

• Penalty tricks

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p61

• Watermelon weirdness

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p61

• Unseen universe: Hot, violent, high-energy happenings

  Features > Feature

  X-rays and gamma rays show the universe at its hottest and most violent, the realm of gamma-ray bursts, white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes

• Unseen universe: Tuning into the deep space channel

  Features > Feature

  Radio and microwave telescopes expose the cold and quirky cosmos – from the chilled-out radiation of the big bang to extreme pulsars and quasars

• Unseen universe: What bigger, better vision will see

  Features > Feature

  New space observatories, huge earthbound telescopes and a continent-sized radio array will probe the origins of stars, elements and the universe itself

• Unseen universe: Window on cosmic maternity wards

  Features > Feature

  Infrared was the first invisible radiation discovered – it has revealed asteroids, comets, interstellar dust and the birth of planets, stars and galaxies