New Scientist magazine - 17 October 2009

Issue number 2730

'Print 'n' shrink' technology could give the designers of diagnostic biochips greater freedom

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• No god-given right to be cruel to animals

  Editorialp5

  Inflicting unnecessary pain on animals is rightly frowned upon. So why do we allow so many animals to die wantonly painful deaths in slaughterhouses?

• Pollution sends an interstellar message

  Editorialp5

  What's bad for Earth's environment could also invite an alien invasion

• WHO fires first shots in the war on alcohol

  Editorialp5

  The successful campaign against smoking suggests that attitudes to drinking will also change

• What's hot on NewScientist.com

  Editorial > What's hot on NewScientist.comp5

• Astronomers clash with US air force over laser rules

  News > Upfrontp6

  Lasers pointed at the sky help focus telescopes, but the air force is concerned they could blind Earth-observing satellites

• Chronic fatigue syndrome linked to 'cancer virus'

  News > Upfrontp6

  Evidence of a virus associated with prostate cancer has been found in two-thirds of a group of people with CFS

• Swine flu vaccine shunned despite availability

  News > Upfrontp6

  Vaccination against swine flu has started in the US, and will do so soon in Europe, but many health workers and parents say they will not have it

• Telescopes turn up no sign of NASA moon impact

  News > Upfrontpp6-7

  Both earthbound observers and the Hubble Space Telescope failed to see any sign of the plume expected from a NASA spacecraft that crashed into the moon

• 60 Seconds

  News > 60 Secondsp7

  Reprieve for Antarctic ice, Maldives government sinks to new depths, abortions down and more

• Conservation targets too low to save at-risk species

  News > Upfrontp7

  Conservation biologists are underestimating extinction risks by not fully allowing for the dangers from loss of genetic diversity, new research suggests

• Kew seed bank has 10% of all plants – and counting

  News > Upfrontp7

  The Millennium Seed Bank has reached its initial target of collecting 10 per cent of the world's known wild plant species

• Sick American dogs get first shot at cancer drugs

  News > Upfrontp7

  Pet dogs that develop cancer can now receive experimental anti-cancer drugs before they become available for humans

• WHO launches worldwide war on booze

  News > This Weekpp8-9

  Alcohol abuse is the fifth leading cause of premature death in the world today. Now the World Health Organization is trying to stamp it out

• What shook up Saturn's rings in 1984?

  News > This Weekp10

  Something disrupted the rings 25 years ago, creating a pattern like the grooves on a vinyl record – and the mystery is only getting deeper

• Animals feel the pain of religious slaughter

  News > This Weekp11

  Brain signals have shown that calves appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law, strengthening the case for making the practices more humane

• Macaques are creeped out by cyber-selves

  News > This Weekp11

  Robots that look too human-like are eerie, the so-called "uncanny valley". It turns out that monkeys find their CGI counterparts every bit as freaky

• Madagascar biodiversity threatened as gangs run wild

  News > This Weekp12

  Since a military coup forced the president to resign in March, loggers and bushmeat traders have rushed to exploit the country's rich biodiversity

• Psychopaths are distracted, not cold-blooded

  News > This Weekp12

  An attention deficit, rather than an inability to feel emotion, may make psychopathic people seem fearless

• To spot an alien, follow the pollution trail

  News > This Weekp13

  Light pollution and artificial chemicals in the atmosphere could reveal the existence of alien life on distant planets

• Climate pledges so far nowhere near enough

  News > This Weekpp14-15

  As the Copenhagen conference on climate change draws closer, a new analysis shows that the pledges made by rich nations will not be enough to avert a dangerous rise in temperatures

• US steel-makers temper climate deal hopes

  News > This Weekp15

  Lobbying has led to Congress considering tariffs on developing nations, which could be a deal-breaker at December's climate change talks in Copenhagen

• Asteroid isn't just a dry heap of rubble

  News > In Briefp17

  Two teams have found evidence of water ice on the asteroid 24 Themis – the find suggests asteroids could have delivered some water to the early Earth

• Butterfly is pupae-sniffing cradle-snatcher

  News > In Briefp17

  Some males sit on the pupae of female butterflies for up to 10 days before they hatch, to get first dibs at mating with them – but how do they know it's a female in there?

• Learning to juggle grows brain networks for good

  News > In Briefp17

  People who did regular juggling training developed fresh connections in the brain's "white matter" – and they stayed even when the juggling stopped

• Melting glaciers bring 1980s pollution revival

  News > In Briefp17

  Alpine glaciers are now releasing nasty chemicals that settled on them decades ago and have since been banned

• A single shot to keep blindness at bay

  News > In Briefp18

  Sight-saving drugs could one day be given without repeated injections into the eye, by temporarily breaching the blood-retina barrier

• Birth of the Appalachians triggered mass extinction

  News > In Briefp18

  The birth of the US mountain chain may have led to a major ice age and a mass extinction

• 'Matrix for mice' probes how mental maps are made

  News > In Briefp18

  Virtual reality created specially for mice could help explain how the brain creates internal maps

• Vegetarian spider is Gandhi of arachnids

  News > In Briefp18

  It may have eight legs and four eyes, but this little guy prefers a vegetarian diet to flies and critters

• Hole on a stick aims to reinvent the desktop fan

  Technology > Newsp21

  A novel design whips up a cooling breeze without the need for fan blades, but the gadget comes with an eye-popping price tag

• Smart GPS tags track sunfish

  Technology > Newsp21

  The fish towed new low-power, depth-sensitive tags that allowed them to be tracked across the ocean for the first time

• Virgin Galactic adds satellite launches to space tourism

  Technology > Newsp21

  Flight tests confirm that Virgin's launch craft WhiteKnightTwo could carry satellites as well as tourists

• The colourful promises of electronic paper

  Technology > Featurepp22-23

  E-readers are sure to be a popular present this Christmas – so why are they all in black and white, and where's the video?

• Hydrogen muscle silences the domestic robot

  Technology > Featurep23

  A chemical mechanism for the noiseless flexing of artificial muscles could be used to make unintrusive robot servants

• Labs-on-a-chip that you can shrink to fit

  Technology > Featurep24

  Shrink-to-fit microfluidic chips could be used to make affordable, single-use diagnostic tools

• Virtual workforce found in Kenyan refugee camp

  Technology > Featurep24

  Crowd-sourcing may help bring the hard labour of the digital economy to those in desperate need of money

• Stop giving antipsychotics to people with dementia

  Comment and Analysispp26-27

  As we live longer, more of us face the horrors of Alzheimer's disease – and the very worst kind of treatment for it, says Irving Kirsch

• The moon belongs to no one – yet

  Comment and Analysispp26-27

  No law governs the ownership of lunar territory. Will we see the same scramble for territory that carved up Antarctica, asks William Cullerne Brown

• Venki Ramakrishnan: A Nobel display of modesty

  Opinion > Interviewp27

  A bike and a "little drinks party in the lab" is enough for the molecular biologist named joint winner of the prize in chemistry last week

• Don't bend the facts

  Lettersp30

  In his review of my book Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking substance in an age of style, Michael Brooks suggests that I am...

• Organised success

  Lettersp30

  My interest was piqued by two recent New Scientist articles discussing the relationship between organisational structure and human behaviour...

• Enigma Number 1567

  Opinion > Enigmap30

• Brain in a box

  Letterspp30-31

  Noel Sharkey's rejection of the computational theory of mind - the theoretical foundation of artificial intelligence - is a breath of fresh air (29 August, p...

• Climbing carnivore

  Lettersp31

  Your article suggesting that Velociraptor used its claws to climb trees sparked debate in our household (12 September, p 10...

• Meat substitutes

  Lettersp31

  In your feature on making the world a better place, Michael Le Page suggests replacing mutton and beef with chicken, pork and if you live...

• Resisting intruders

  Lettersp31

  When Feedback once more addressed the proliferation of feeble warning signs, I was reminded of one of my father's favourite anecdotes (8 August...

• Scientific truths

  Lettersp31

  Hugh McLachlan is right to raise fundamental issues about Richard Dawkins's and David Hume's arguments against miracles (8 August, p 26), which are...

• The bee's wings

  Lettersp31

  In his article on models of insect flight, Paul Marks attributes the first theory on how bumblebees are able to fly, despite their apparent defiance...

• Richard Leakey: Passionate, prickly and principled

  Interviewpp32-33

  After a distinguished career studying human evolution, he quit to fight for conservation in Africa. The two decades since haven't softened him

• The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?

  Features > Cover Storypp34-37

  Navigator, accountant and secretary in one, it knows more about you than you think – and will spill its secrets to anyone who has ways of making it talk

• Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock?

  Features > Featurepp38-42

  Forget primordial soup: the cradle of life may have been a foaming stone

• Solving the crystal maze: The secrets of structure

  Features > Featurepp43-45

  Crystal structures explain the behaviour of everything from bone to gemstones – but why do they take the shapes they do? We might have cracked it at last

• Six diseases you never knew you could catch

  Features > Featurep46

  Bacteria or viruses could cause illnesses from diabetes to schizophrenia that are usually blamed on genes or unhealthy lifestyles

• 2 Diabetes

  Features > Featurepp46-47

• 1 Obesity

  Features > Featurep47

• 3 Schizophrenia

  Features > Featurep48

• 4 Breast cancer

  Features > Featurepp48-49

• 5 Obsessive-compulsive disorder

  Features > Featurep49

• 6 Prostate cancer

  Features > Featurep49

• Time isn't what it used to be

  Opinion > Books & Artsp50

  From physics to biology to neuroscience, Time by Eva Hoffman poetically explores the many faces of the mysterious dimension

• Bouncing back: How we deal with bereavement

  Opinion > Books & Artsp51

  In The Other Side of Sadness, clinical psychologist George Bonanno asks the best way of coping with grief and why some feel it more than others

• Facing extinction: Conservation in North America

  Opinion > Books & Artsp51

  A fine history, Nature's Ghosts by Mark Barrow shows how far we've come from Thomas Jefferson's belief that mammoths still roamed the Earth

• Flight, camera, action: Improve your bird photos

  Opinion > Books & Artsp51

  Both working and wannabe bird photographers will benefit from Creative Bird Photography by Bill Coster, a book of tips and beautiful examples

• Harnessing happiness: A genetic fable

  Opinion > Books & Artsp51

  Generosity, Richard Powers's brilliantly crafted 10th novel, tackles the potential for humans to perpetuate happiness by genetic engineering

• David Haines: Love songs to science

  Opinion > Books & Artsp52

  The songwriter celebrates everything from the solar system to evolution, the subject of a "science oratorio" to be performed later this month

• In the beginning, again

  Feedbackp68

  This week's Feedback reveals the Word that began the universe, some very expensive quantum fruitloopery, and your last chance to enter our Darwin Now competition

• Snakes alive 2

  The Last Word > Last Word Answerp69

• Shell shock

  The Last Word > Last Word Questionp69