Mags UK - Thousands of Magazine Back Issues

New Scientist

Issue: 18/09/2010

Ref: NS180910

Availability: 10 in stock.

No. 2778

• California's dolphins suffer mystery skin lesions

  News > Upfront p6

  Bottlenose dolphins in Monterey Bay, California, are in the throes of an epidemic of disfiguring skin diseases, and nobody knows why

• New pi record exploits Yahoo's computers

  News > Upfront p6

  A new calculation of pi and a separate result involving Rubik's cube both exploit the computational power of networks belonging to search engines

• Polio eradication programme feels the pinch

  News > Upfront p6

  As polio re-establishes itself in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the eradication programme is billions of dollars short

• Quark excitement: LHC surpasses rivals for first time

  News > Upfront p6

  The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is poised to publish the first result that surpasses the abilities of rival particle smashers

• 60 Seconds

  News > 60 Seconds p7

  Oldie memory lapses, a Chinese deep-diving submersible, Klingon opera, and more

• Arctic hurricane frequency set to dwindle as world warms

  News > Upfront p7

  Climate change is expected to bring more extreme weather, but at least one region may benefit from fewer storms

• IVF has best chance of success in spring

  News > Upfront p7

  If you are trying for a baby using IVF, you are more likely to conceive in the springtime

• Religious rite gives evolution a helping hand

  News > Upfront p7

  A centuries-old religious ritual in Mexico is driving the evolution of a species of cave-dwelling fish

• Transgenic fish swimming towards a plate near you

  News > This Week pp8-9

  If the US approves genetically modified fish for human consumption, the implications will be global

• Autism drug aims to balance brain signals

  News > This Week p10

  A drug that rebalances the brain chemistry of people with autism is promising in its first trial, with less irritability and better social skills

• Bad breath sniffer to hunt for life on Mars

  News > This Week p11

  A chemical responsible for bad breath and flatulence in humans could signal life on Mars – NASA's next rover will try to sniff it out

• Why BP's failure to mention safety culture is problem

  News > This Week p11

  BP's investigation into the causes of the Gulf blowout focuses on technical problems. It may have missed a key factor

• Blood disorder cured – a first for gene therapy

  News > This Week p12

  A 21-year-old Frenchman is the first person in the world to be cured of beta-thalassaemia through gene therapy, but which gene is responsible?

• M-theory: Doubts linger over godless multiverse

  News > This Week p12

  It could be a theory of everything, but doubts linger over whether the aspect of M-theory that scraps the need for a divine creator is essential

• 2000-year-old pills found in Greek shipwreck

  News > This Week p14

  Medicine found in a millennia-old shipwreck in the Mediterranean is the first physical evidence for ancient Greek prescriptions

• Light trapped on curved surfaces

  News > This Week p14

  Laser light has been made to flow across the surface of curved objects – the feat could help model how light travels in the curved fabric of space

• Ancient South American megabird had 6-metre wingspan

  News > In Brief p16

  A fossil skeleton reveals that a sea bird once existed with a wingspan more than twice that of the largest living bird

• Birds use optical illusions to get mates

  News > In Brief p16

  Male bowerbirds play tricks with perspective in attempts to woo females

• Meet William the Concherer, the dolphin that can fish

  News > In Brief p16

  A "conching" dolphin captured on film suggests the marine mammal uses the massive shell to trap and stun fish

• Vortex of electrons could handle one atom at a time

  News > In Brief p16

  Set a beam of electrons twisting, and the resulting vortex could be just the tool to manipulate atoms

• Antibiotics play hell with gut flora

  News > In Brief p17

  Each round of antibiotics may be a roll of the dice that could lead to lasting changes in a person's gut microbes

• Did Jupiter and Saturn play pinball with Uranus?

  News > In Brief p17

  Uranus may have been batted back and forth between Jupiter and Saturn before being flung out to its present location, new simulations suggest

• For clean hands, don't rub, scrub with a paper towel

  News > In Brief p17

  Rubbing your hands under a warm-air dryer leaves them more coated with germs than before you washed them

• Women with the baby blues process emotion differently

  News > In Brief p17

  Don't blame your hormones: the brains of women with post-natal depression process emotion differently to non-depressed new mothers

• How Google Instant knows what you want

  Technology > News p19

  Google's new ability to provide full search results as you type is just the first step towards the company's plans to know your desires before you do

• Towel-folding robot now on general sale

  Technology > News p19

  The PR2 is an internet celebrity and its versatility could boost robotics research programmes – for those who can afford the $400,000 price tag

• YouTube tries live video streaming

  Technology > News p19

  Users are familiar with visiting the site to watch pre-recorded videos – could they soon be tuning in to live TV too?

• Untagged: Software recognises animals it's seen before

  Technology > News pp20-21

  When identifying individual animals in the wild, there's a limit to what we humans can do – but now there's a way to track them by their markings

• Acoustic trick gives 'dumbphones' touchscreen feel

  Technology > News p21

  Don't be embarrassed by your "ancient" push-button cellphone – turn it into a pseudo-touchscreen

• Living fuel cells squeeze juice from jellyfish

  Technology > News p22

  A fuel cell made of fluorescent jellyfish protein and a mixture of enzymes found in fireflies and sea pansies can generate electricity

• Steampunk chip takes the heat

  Technology > News p22

  Transistors don't work at high temperatures, but a retro take on modern technology could change the face of hot electronics

• World's smallest fridge could chill quantum computers

  Technology > News p22

  A quantum trick could pave the way for an atomic-scale fridge – it could brush absolute zero to keep quantum computers running smoothly

• 'Off-grid' cellphone towers could save lives

  Comment and Analysis pp24-25

  Electricity from rural cellphone towers in poor countries could chill vaccines, saving 5 million lives every year, say Harvey Rubin and Alice Conant

• Bjørn Lomborg: Use technology to fight climate change

  Opinion > Interview p25

  Has the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" changed his mind about global warming? After all, he says we need $100 billion a year to counteract it

• Getting the wind up

  Letters p26

  John Etherington's criticism of the financial support provided to wind power is fundamentally flawed because it ignores the high "external costs" of electricity generation...

• Enigma Number 1613

  Opinion > Enigma p26

• Shaken babies?

  Letters pp26-27

  Your editorial on the science behind shaken baby syndrome calls for new avenues of thought on the issue (31 July, p 3). After years of...

• Acoustic intent

  Letters p27

  Trevor Cox's article on acoustic archaeology mentioned the debate about the intentional use of sound in prehistory (21 August, p 45...

• Pioneering unity

  Letters p27

  Reporting on Petr Horava's ideas on how to unify quantum theory and relativity (7 August, p 28), Anil Ananthaswamy comments that the theory will...

• Probably guilty

  Letters p27

  The worst mistake in the thinking behind the use of DNA evidence in court is a simple one of mathematics (21 August, p 8...

• Space recycling

  Letters p27

  Your article debates how to recycle a space station (21 August, p 5). I should think the enormous cost of constructing the space station would...

• Goodbye, nature vs nurture

  Opinion > The Big Idea pp28-29

  Talking about nature and nurture as separate, clear-cut forces is far adrift from the complexities of developmental science, says Evelyn Fox Keller

• What's eating the stars out of our galaxy's heart?

  Features > Cover Story pp30-33

  The centre of the Milky Way is darker than you'd expect – and not just because it's home to a supermassive black hole

• Brain-hacking art: Pictures that turn inside out

  Features > Feature pp34-35

  British artist Patrick Hughes fools our response to perspective in his "reverspective" artworks, revealing how the brain divides up the work of seeing

• Brain-hacking art: Twisting mirrors, unreal shadows

  Features > Feature p35

  Why don't we notice impossible lighting and unlikely reflections in realistic-looking paintings? The answer is all about speed

• Brain-hacking art: Virtual reality, the old way

  Features > Feature p36

  Trompe l'oeil painting has been around since ancient Greek and Roman times, but there's a lot more to it than just photorealistic images

• Brain-hacking art: Making an emotional impression

  Features > Feature p37

  Why is Impressionist painting so popular? The answer may lie in the brain's early warning system – and what happens when consciousness dims

• Brain-hacking art: Two pictures for the price of one

  Features > Feature pp38-39

  Paintings containing carefully constructed illusions can make your brain flip as it tries to make sense of what it sees

• Brain-hacking art: Getting your wires crossed

  Features > Feature p39

  What's the colour of a trumpet blast? David Hockney, Wassily Kandinsky and other synaesthetes could tell you

• Think or swim: Can we hold back the oceans?

  Features > Feature pp40-43

  Not even massive geoengineering projects will stop the seas' relentless rise. Maybe it's time we found somewhere to put all that excess water

• Avatar therapy: From couch to cyberspace

  Features > Feature pp44-45

  Psychotherapy in a virtual world has its advantages – particularly if the real world is what you can't cope with

• Can video games be art?

  Opinion > Books & Arts pp46-47

  Artists, gamers, designers, historians and critics answer the question that has become emblematic of the clash between technology and culture

• Demystifying the eel

  Opinion > Books & Arts p47

  In Eels: An exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the world's most mysterious fish, James Prosek celebrates this fish and its human fans

• The industry that promises a cure for ageing

  Opinion > Books & Arts p47

  Selling the Fountain of Youth by Arlene Weintraub exposes the pseudoscientific claims of the anti-ageing industry

• What can a humble pebble reveal about the Earth?

  Opinion > Books & Arts p47

  In The Planet in a Pebble: A journey into Earth's deep history, Jan Zalasiewicz squeezes more than blood from a stone

• Pastures small and green beckon chemists

  Careers > The Insider pp48-49

  Forget the pharmaceutical industry: nanoscience and environmental chemistry are the most exciting career destinations for chemists

• Give me that in light years

  Feedback p64

  The design software God needs, how to save the planet with a razor, a truly lousy kettle, and more

• Rising heat

  The Last Word > Last Word Answer p65

• Simply red

  The Last Word > Last Word Answer p65

• Sound of silence

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p65

• Sweat test

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p65

• Tyre Strategy

  The Last Word > Last Word Question p65