New Scientist magazine - 24 October 2009

Issue number 2731

Sometimes it involves collecting frozen maggots off a body

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• Meet the superheroes of science

  Careers > Graduate Specialpp2-5

  You too could find bugs on murder victims or protect us from Martian invaders. Find out how (spandex bodysuit and cape not included)

• Cute, fluffy and horribly greedy

  Editorialp5

  If you really want to make a sacrifice to sustainability, consider ditching your pet – its ecological footprint will shock you

• It's hubris to say we've outgrown evolution

  Editorialp5

  In 400 years, women will become stouter, healthier and fertile for longer – this is evolution at work

• Surgical robots at large in the path lab

  Editorialp5

  Giving an autonomous robot a scalpel is too much of a risk, but replace the patient with a corpse and medical robots can break free

• What's hot on NewScientist.com

  Editorial > What's hot on NewScientist.comp5

• High-stakes test looms for space shuttle successor

  News > Upfrontp6

  All eyes are on the first test of NASA's Ares I rocket – any problems will strengthen the case for the project's cancellation

• Was moon-smashing mission doomed from the start?

  News > Upfrontp6

  Weeks before NASA's LCROSS hit the moon, some scientists predicted the impact might not be visible, and others questioned its logic

• Women's egg freezing gets boost

  News > Upfrontp6

  First systematic study shows good pregnancy rate, but it is too soon for healthy women to use the technique to delay childbearing

• Come-to-work eyes: Secrets of interview success

  Careers > Graduate Specialpp6-7

  Tap into your interviewer's subconscious and you won't have to worry about what comes out of your mouth

• 'Superspreading' doctors cause most infections

  News > Upfrontpp6-7

  The dirty hands of doctors and nurses act as germ "superspreaders" of everything from swine flu to hospital superbugs

• 60 Seconds

  News > 60 Secondsp7

  Reefs' riches, Newton's heir, cannabis leniency and more

• Adopt green tech by 2014 to avert climate calamity

  News > Upfrontp7

  The world will have to switch to a low-carbon economy within five years or risk runaway global warming, says WWF

• Does 'missing link' Ida lack evolutionary insights?

  News > Upfrontp7

  A new study dismisses a beautifully preserved fossil's usefulness, suggesting it is "surprisingly uninformative" about primate evolution

• First HIV vaccine trial success confirmed

  News > Upfrontp7

  Further details on the first successful HIV vaccine confirm that it had an effect – although it was very modest

• Dream job 1: Documentary producer

  Careers > Graduate Specialpp8-9

  Kicking off this week's series of true-life stories from our Graduate Careers Special: how a zoology degree led Alex Tate to a career in TV

• Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?

  News > This Weekpp8-9

  An analysis of ancient light from distant galaxies suggests that gravity once distorted time more than space. That's not the way Einstein saw things

• Dream job 2: Exotic psychologist

  Careers > Graduate Specialp9

  Another true-life story from our Graduate Careers Special: altered states of consciousness are everyday reality for Nicola Holt, parapsychologist

• Dream job 3: Lead programmer for a dot-com start-up

  Careers > Graduate Specialp9

  Another true-life story from our Graduate Careers Special: moving from a physics lab to Reddit.com, Christopher Slowe took a tip from drug dealers

• Dream job 4: Perfumer

  Careers > Graduate Specialp10

  Another Graduate Careers Special true-life story: chemistry and biology gave Dominique Gindre the foundations for his work as a "nose"

• Better embryo selection boosts IVF success

  News > This Weekp10

  Pregnancy and birth rates have been greatly improved in women undergoing IVF by changing the way embryos are selected

• Paper ideal for growing tumours in the lab

  News > This Weekp10

  Modern offices may scorn the stuff, but paper is being used to build scaffolds for living model tumours and damaged hearts

• Dream job 5: Climate impact scientist

  Careers > Graduate Specialpp10-11

  Another Graduate Careers Special true-life story: Gillian Kay takes the science done at the UK Met Office and makes it relevant to ordinary people

• Dream job 6: Science festival director

  Careers > Graduate Specialp11

  Our final Graduate Careers Special true-life story: how medical microbiology and immunology led Natalie Ireland to the Manchester Science Festival

• Subterranean microbes revive tired old gas fields

  News > This Weekp11

  Engineers are brimming with ideas of how to extract every last tonne of fossil fuel: one company is now showing that all it takes is common fertiliser

• Antidepressants and depression may both harm a fetus

  News > This Weekp12

  A US jury has said an antidepressant caused heart defects in a fetus – but leaving depression untreated can be bad news for mothers and babies alike

• Brain transplant bird points to origin of communication

  News > This Weekp12

  Chimera birds with the higher brain of a songbird and the hindbrain of a quail could reveal the origins of communication in songbirds and people

• Meet future woman: shorter, plumper, more fertile

  News > This Weekp14

  A contemporary study of women in Massachusetts shows that natural selection is still going strong in humans

• Reduced genome works fine with 2000 chunks missing

  News > This Weekp14

  The first systematic scan for non-essential DNA has given an estimate of the minimum genome a healthy person needs, as well as clues to our evolution

• First black hole for light created on Earth

  News > This Weekp15

  An electromagnetic black hole has been built in a lab – and may one day be adapted to generate limitless solar energy even on a cloudy day

• Brain-shrinking algae send sea lions off course

  News > In Briefp16

  MRI scans of sea lion brains have revealed how neurotoxins from algal red tides make them behave bizarrely

• Laser creates 'false memories' in fly brains

  News > In Briefp16

  Flies with brains genetically engineered to respond to light learned to avoid certain smells as if they had experienced pain

• Placebo effect caught in the act in spinal nerves

  News > In Briefp16

  People were given a fake painkiller but didn't feel pain - and for the first time, an fMRI scanner saw their pain-related nerves stay quiet

• Sun's rain could explain why corona heat is insane

  News > In Briefp16

  Simulations of "rain" on the sun hint at the process that could be heating the corona to much higher temperatures than would be expected

• Approaching footsteps boost seeing in the dark

  News > In Briefp17

  The sound of something getting closer increases the sensitivity of the visual part of your brain – before you're even conscious of hearing it

• First evidence that bird flu is spread sexually

  News > In Briefp17

  Bird flu may be a sexually transmitted infection, at least in ducks – and the less well-endowed the male, the greater the chance of spreading the virus

• It's official: Your bullying boss really is an idiot

  News > In Briefp17

  Psychologists show that people turn nasty when influence and incompetence collide

• Monster supernovae may explain galaxy's mystery haze

  News > In Briefp17

  The "WMAP haze" – a mysterious microwave glow at the Milky Way's centre – may be explained by amplified cosmic rays from large supernovae

• $500,000 treasure dug up in lunar soil

  Technology > Newsp21

  For the first time a robot labourer has dug enough simulated lunar soil to win NASA's annual prize

• How to turn pig poo into green power

  Technology > Newsp21

  Anaerobic digestion is the most effective and environmentally sound method for generating electricity from pig slurry

• Light switch could boost network speeds

  Technology > Newsp21

  An all-optical switch could boost the performance of the plastic optical fibres widely tipped for use in high-speed communications networks

• Industrial robot hones virtual autopsies

  Technology > Featurepp22-23

  Autopsies are messy, upsetting for the family, and you only get one chance to see the body whole. "Virtual autopsies" tackle all three problems at once

• Sea anemone stings make a 'hypodermic' skin cream

  Technology > Featurep23

  Stinging cells can be used as tiny needles to inject drugs into the skin – sea anemone face creams should be available to buy next year

• Could phones bridge the photo-sharing generation gap?

  Technology > Featurep24

  A novel photo-sharing application for mobile phones aims to appeal to the Flickr and Kodak generations alike

• Laser microscope aims to uncover alien life

  Technology > Featurep24

  A rugged holographic microscope could be transported to an alien world like Europa to look for life in its icy underground seas

• The truth about the disappearing honeybees

  Comment and Analysispp26-27

  Heard what Einstein said about humans having four years to live if the bees died out? Well he didn't and we won't, say Marcelo Aizen and Lawrence Harder

• Jeff Greason: NASA must invest in human space flight

  Opinion > Interviewp27

  The US human space programme is in trouble: the space industry mogul has some ideas for how to fix it

• Persistent populace?

  Lettersp28

  An optimistic Jesse Ausubel tells us we are so clever that we will always figure out a way to beat Malthusian predictions of population catastrophe...

• Enigma Number 1568

  Opinion > Enigmap28

• What's the buzz?

  Letterspp28-29

  Caroline Williams casts doubt on the received wisdom that the bees' waggle dance is about communicating the direction and distance of a source of food...

• Elementology

  Lettersp29

  Copernicus was a great scientist and should be commemorated, though Aristarchus of Samos came up with the heliocentric theory 17 centuries earlier. But it seems...

• For the record

  Lettersp29

  • We misspelled John Cockcroft's name in our editorial on ITER, sorry (10 October, p 5...

• Geo war

  Lettersp29

  Another plea in your pages for geoengineering (12 September, p 34) makes me wonder if I am alone in my concern about the potential for...

• Improving Earth

  Lettersp29

  I found your "Blueprint for a better world" series interesting (12, 19 and 26 September, and 3 October), as I am involved in an endeavour...

• Mortality rate

  Lettersp29

  In his article on genetic engineering, Michael Le Page claims that genetically modified Golden Rice will "help to improve health and reduce child mortality, which"...

• No second chance

  Lettersp29

  I agree with Harriet Coleman (22 August, p 24) that the debate about global warming is really about preserving our way of life, and that...

• Relative earnings

  Lettersp29

  The chart on "extreme poverty" at the end of part one of your "Blueprint for a better world" series errs in using the classification of...

• You dirty rat

  Lettersp29

  In Henry Nicholls's article on taming wild animals, I was intrigued to read that "You can do anything with the tame rats... you can"...

• Beyond GDP: We need a dashboard for the whole economy

  Opinion > Essaypp30-31

  From stock markets to statistics, conventional economics is in a mess. We need radical new ways to assess economic activity, says Mike Holderness

• Timewarp: How your brain creates the fourth dimension

  Features > Cover Storypp32-37

  Time is an illusion: your brain stitches it together until it seems continuous. But what happens when it goes wrong?

• Solar superpower: Should Europe run on Sahara sun?

  Features > Featurepp38-41

  Giant electricity plants in the Sahara desert could provide 15 per cent of Europe's power. But there may be better solar solutions closer to home

• Probably guilty: Bad mathematics means rough justice

  Features > Featurepp42-45

  Statistics can stump the best brains – but when courts get it wrong the consequences can be dire. New Scientist brings you five fallacies to forgo

• How green is your pet?

  Features > Featurepp46-47

  It's time to wise up to the ecological pawprint of your furry friend – it may be doing more environmental damage than an SUV

• Memory and forgetting in the digital age

  Opinion > Books & Artspp48-49

  Do you want to remember everything? Total Recall by Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell says you do; Delete by Victor Mayer-Schonberger says you don't

• Vive la différence of languages

  Opinion > Books & Artsp49

  Languages are dying out at an alarming rate. But On the Death and Life of Languages by Claude Hagège shows that all may not be lost

• 'We live in a tenth-of-a-second world'

  Opinion > Books & Artsp49

  A history of human reaction time, A Tenth of a Second by Jimena Canales investigates its role in physiology, sports measurement and astronomy

• Creationists! Rewriting history just got easier

  Feedbackp68

  A fill-in-your-own-ill-informed-opinion fact-pack, some chemicals inspired by nature, and really small jumbo toilet rolls

• Air spray

  The Last Word > Last Word Answerp69

• Spice attack

  The Last Word > Last Word Answerp69

• Rise and fall

  The Last Word > Last Word Questionp69