September 2010 archive

Earprints could improve sound quality in iPhone calls

Apple suggests a system that judges the distance between phone and ear could decide how much volume to feed through to the speaker

Cosmic accidents: Brains or brawn - which was best?

When the going got tough in prehistoric East Africa, some of humanity's closest relatives went for bigger jaws, rather than bigger brains. Big mistake

Contador's dope test: What does the banned drug do?

Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has tested positive for the banned stimulant clenbuterol - but he blames it on his dinner

Welcome breather for US stem cell research

The green flag has been given for federally funded projects on human embryonic stem cells to continue, for now, says Andy Coghlan

Levitating graphene is fastest-spinning object ever

Thanks to its incredible strength, a flake of exotic carbon a few atoms thick has grabbed a speed crown

Random numbers created out of nothing

A vacuum contains quantum fluctuations, which can be exploited for a device to generate truly random numbers

Cosmic accidents: Blasting the Earth into life

The solar system's "late heavy bombardment" blasted our planet - but might also have delivered our water, and created nurseries for life

Found: first rocky exoplanet that could host life

A rocky body about three times as massive as Earth has been found in the cosy "habitable zone" around its star - the find suggests habitable planets are common

Monkeys bid to join elite self-awareness club

Rhesus macaque monkeys have shown they can recognise their own reflection in a mirror, suggesting that, like humans and other apes, they are self-aware

Rivers threatened around the world

Water security threatens humans and wildlife alike, says a global survey - and technology has only tackled half the problem

Jamie Condliffe, reporter

Alberto Contador, winner of this year's Tour de France, is the latest in a long line of cyclists to have tested positive for a banned substance.

Contador's press officer stated this morning that the cyclist "had tested positive for clenbuterol during a rest on the Tour in July", the BBC report.

The drug is a decongestant and bronchodilator, which increases the aerobic capacity of the body by allowing more effective oxygen transportation. It also increases metabolic rate, and helps shed fat and build muscle.

As race leader, Contador was tested regularly during the Tour. The big question, of course, is did he deliberately and knowingly take the drug?

Andy Coghlan, reporter

On Tuesday an appeals court gave US stem cell researchers a boost by permanently lifting a ban imposed on their work in August by a federal judge, reports CNN.

The decision by the three appeals court judges following oral evidence from both sides on Monday means that, for now, federally funded researchers can continue their work on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), which have the potential to turn into all tissues of the body.

The decision lifts the uncertainty facing many researchers affected by the ruling.

Michael Marshall, environment reporter

The water supplying 80 per cent of the world's population is exposed to "high levels of threat". That's the conclusion of a study that surveys the status of rivers throughout the world, and looks at their effects on both humans and the ecosystem at large.

Writing in this week's Nature (vol 467, p 555), Charles Vorosmarty of the City College of New York and colleagues pull together a swathe of data on factors affecting water security, from dams that reduce river flow to the pollution and destruction of wetlands.

They produce two maps showing the levels of threat to humans and to ecosystems that rely on rivers. The maps are virtually identical, with the continental US, Europe and south-east Asia facing the greatest threats, to both humans and the wider ecosystem.

Fossil secrets of the da Vinci codex

Did Leonardo decipher traces of ancient life centuries before Darwin?

Anti-antibiotics: Bugs, drugs and bureaucrats

Why are drug regulatory agencies discouraging the development of new antibiotics?

Cosmic accidents: Mars attacks

A colossal interplanetary collision doesn't sound like a good thing - but without it, things might have turned out very differently

The geometric pedestal of string theory

In The Shape of Inner Space, Shing-Tung Yau and Steve Nadis fight string theory's corner by explaining multidimensional geometry

Sparks fly over origin of altruism

A new view of kin selection says it is part of a broader theory describing the evolution of behaviour in general

Reports of miracle drugs are no substitute for trials

How did a collection of case reports lead to an untested drug being administered all over the world to people with serious bleeding, asks Ian Roberts

Emission control: Turning carbon trash into treasure

Carbon dioxide may be bad for the climate, but it's good for the roses. Perhaps it's time we rehabilitated this gaseous villain

Taser shotgun firm shoots itself in foot

The UK Home Office has revoked the licence of the company who supplied an unauthorised Taser shotgun to British police

Dinner is served... in a Petri dish

A new course at Harvard allows students to study the physics and material science behind cookery

A fifth of all wild plant species face extinction

The Sampled Red List Index for Plants reveals that one-fifth of all plant species are on the brink - a higher proportion than for birds

Cosmic accidents: Sparking up our star

What does it take to make a solar system? Hydrogen, helium, interstellar dust - and a spark to set it on fire

Zoologger: Ancient air-breathing, triple-jawed fish

If it ain't bust, don't fix it - the butterflyfish has taken the saying to extremes, living the same peculiar lifestyle for 57 million years

Countdown to oblivion: Why time itself could end

The notion of a multiverse means time could end, taking us with it - although the axe won't fall for 5 billion years or so

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

Controversy continues to dog a non-lethal weapon called the Taser shotgun.

The "X12" Taser shotgun is made by Taser International of Scottsdale, Arizona and fires a battery-packed 12-bore shell with forward-facing barbs that deliver a debilitating electric shock.

In August last year, New Scientist revealed research that showed an early version of the weapon was both difficult to aim accurately, putting victims' eyes at risk, and sometimes delivered a shock for more than five minutes, rather than 20 seconds.

Such issues were part of the reason that the Taser shotgun went into a programme of testing in the labs of the UK Home Office's Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB).

Cosmic accidents: Tipping the antimatter balance

Why isn't the cosmos a sea of bland radiation? The triumph of matter suggests that the laws of physics are biased

Maker Faire: From icy love to electrical Play-Doh

The World Maker Faire in New York last weekend showcased a range of curious inventions, such as a suit that helps you hug a glacier

Bomb hotspots of northern Europe

The most comprehensive survey of sunken wartime munitions in the north-east Atlantic reveals hotspots of bombs lost during World Wars I and II

Nokia touchscreen creates texture illusion

Imagine a smartphone with apps you can feel. Nokia is working on the prototype

Cancer-fighting Viagra, the drug that keeps on giving

The all-purpose wonder-drug Viagra has added another string to its bow - now the drug could be used in cancer chemotherapy

Spin doctors: How PR trumps trust in modern medicine

In White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the dark side of medicine, Carl Elliott reveals the tactics the pharmaceuticals industry uses to boost profits

Did volcanoes really kill off the Neanderthals?

Humanity's closest cousins were wiped out by volcanic eruptions, according to a new study - but there is a host of other possible explanations

Hawking radiation glimpsed in artificial black hole

Light has been observed escaping from an event horizon in a laboratory experiment that simulated a key characteristic of a black hole

Pulses of light spark muscle movement

A technology that allows nerves to be switched on and off with light could one day help paralysed people to walk again

Chemical analysis traces Brazil's trafficked cocaine

Brazilian police are chemically profiling cocaine they have seized and compiling a database of chemical signatures of South American drugs

How to be happy (but not too much)

It's good for your health, it makes you smarter - and our brains are hard-wired for it. New Scientist counts our reasons to be cheerful

Foursquare founder: Privacy fears are exaggerated

Dennis Crowley, head of location-based social networking site Foursquare, says the app is no stalkers' paradise

Cosmic accidents: How we avoided the void

We wouldn't exist if our cosmic neighbourhood had been just a bit less dense than average during the tumultuous moments after the big bang

Antidepressants make people less likely to harm others

People on antidepressent drugs which raise serotonin levels are less willing to hurt or punish other people - even if it's for the "greater good"

Fungi generate their own mini wind to go the distance

Through carefully coordinated spore ejections, some species are able to create local air currents to carry their seed

Why the Stuxnet worm is like nothing seen before

The Stuxnet worm is the first of its type known to be capable of seizing control of industrial hardware

How did you get to work today? I took the Shweeb

A transport system that's a cross between a monorail and a bike has won $1 million in funding from Google

Andy Coghlan, reporter

If you want to avoid being blown up by a bombs lost during World Wars I and II, be careful trawling the seabed for fish - particularly near the coast of the Netherlands and Belgium. That's the message from the most comprehensive survey yet of sunken wartime munitions in waters of the North-East Atlantic.

The survey highlights the southern North Sea as a hotspot for accidental finds of bombs (PDF). Of 1879 encounters reported throughout the North-East Atlantic since 2004, almost three quarters, 1320, were in that area.

Outlining the overall condition of the North-East Atlantic, the survey shows 148 known sites in the North-East Atlantic where wartime munitions were dumped (see stars on map). Of the 1879 bombs found by accident (shown as dots), fishermen found 58 per cent, dredgers 8 per cent, and another 29 per cent were washed up on beaches.

(Image: OSPAR Commission 2010 /OSPAR, 2010. Quality Status Report 2010/OSPAR Commission, London.)

Jessica Hamzelou, reporter

The increasingly all-purpose wonder-drug Viagra has added another string to its bow - the drug has been shown to boost the actions of a chemotherapy drug while limiting its toxic side effects.

At the moment, many cancers are treated with doxorubicin - an antibiotic that kills off cells. The drug's action is usually limited by its dose, though, as it's pretty toxic. Patients can experience nasty side effects, including nausea, vomiting, mouth infections and damage to the heart.

Sildenafil - brand name Viagra - on the other hand, works by inhibiting an enzyme called PDE-5 that controls blood flow in the penis. When the enzyme's action is blocked, the blood vessel walls relax, allowing more blood flow.

(Image: Action Press/Rex Feature)

Michael Marshall, environment reporter

According to a flurry of news stories this week, a series of massive volcanic eruptions were to blame for the extinction of the Neanderthals.

Discovery News sums the story up nicely:

At least three volcanic eruptions about 40,000 years ago devastated Neanderthals' western Asian and European homelands, spurring a rapid demise of these humanlike hominids... Modern humans survived because they lived in Africa and on the tip of southwestern Asia at that time, safely outside the range of volcanic ash clouds.

The paper isn't online yet so we can't judge it, but we don't need to see it to know that this is just one of many possible explanations.

Chance alignment makes Saturnian snowman

This fledgling snowman is actually a chance alignment of two of Saturn's larger moons, Dione and Rhea

Beyond God and atheism: Why I am a 'possibilian'

When it comes to the big questions, why should we have to either deny God or believe? Surely good science doesn't so restrict us, says David Eagleman

Leading cause of blindness identified

Age-related macular degeneration causes half of all blindness in the western world, but new treatments may now be over the horizon

Crashing galaxy clusters may turbocharge cosmic rays

The biggest collisions in the cosmos seem to be acting as giant particle accelerators, generating some of the mysterious ultra-high energy cosmic rays that slam into Earth

BP's head of safety admits human error over oil spill

The first head-to-head meeting between BP and government-appointed investigators has highlighted operating errors aboard Deepwater Horizon

Triumph of the north or technological salvation?

The World in 2050 predicts nations fringing the Arctic will boom, while another book, 2030, suggests that technology will sustain the unsustainable

Is this the start of the element wars?

A spat between Japan and China highlights how a depletion in essential elements is already straining relations between countries

Addicts to get no kick from cocaine

Gene therapy that rids the body of cocaine could be the answer for junkies who want to quit

Cosmic accidents: 10 lucky breaks for humanity

We wouldn't be here without a chain of coincidences that's led from the big bang to our big brains - taking in Martian attack and dino doom along the way

A little aspirin may prevent bowel cancer

Small doses of aspirin may be as effective as higher doses at preventing bowel cancer, with less risk of side effects

Kilimanjaro's vanishing ice due to tree-felling

Local deforestation could partly explain why the ice cap on Africa's highest peak is vanishing fast

Rachel Courtland, reporter 

This fledgling snowman is actually a chance alignment of two of Saturn's larger moons, Dione and Rhea. Dione, the moon at the top of the image, is actually three-quarters the size of Rhea. NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image when Dione fell between the spacecraft and Rhea. The two moons sit 500,000 kilometers apart, a little more than Earth's distance to its own moon.

The two Saturn moons appear to blend seamlessly because they both reflect a similar percentage of the sunlight that hits them. A large crater called Evander near Dione's south pole makes it appear as if the two moons are stuck together.

(Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Katharine Comisso, contributor

Warnings have already surfaced about water wars. Now the prospect of "element wars" is raising its ugly head.

Chinese customs officials are blocking shipments to Japan of rare earth elements (REEs) and companies have been informally told not to export them, says The New York Times.

The move puts more pressure on relations already tested by the capture of a Chinese fishing boat captain in disputed waters earlier this month. The captain was finally released on friday, says the Financial Times, but the ban on exports appears to remain in place.

The ruckus comes amid mounting concern over the supply of REEs from China. The country has been imposing export quotas for some time, perhaps in an effort to preserve stockpiles to meet growing demand at home, and also to process the raw materials itself.

Aurora saturnalis: halos at the poles of the ringed planet

Saturn was already the solar system's undisputed lord of the rings. Now newly processed images from the Cassini spacecraft are revealing previously unseen halos above the planet's poles

Out-of-this-world proposal for solar wind power

The world's energy needs could be met 100 billion times over using a satellite to harness the solar wind - but only if we can figure out how to focus

Brain-hacking art: Getting your wires crossed

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

Courgettes, judo throws and bear attacks on humans

As the story of a Montana woman throwing a courgette at a grizzly shows, bear stories capture the public imagination, says Rowan Hooper

Blood test identifies organ transplant rejection

A simple blood test could buy time to treat transplant rejection before the organ is damaged

More than 4 million barrels of oil entered Gulf

First independent study shows US government got their sums right with estimate of 4.1 million barrels of oil

Time to rebrand the stegosaur?

Like brontosaurs before it, Stegosaurus could be about to lose its iconic name

Crunch time ahead for Gulf oyster fisheries

A boat trip out to the Louisiana bayous shows prospects for recovery balanced on a knife edge

Brain-hacking art: Pictures that turn inside out

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

Solved: mystery of the meteor-shedding asteroid

Comets cause most meteor showers, but the Geminids trail a rocky asteroid - now we know why

Standing on a stepladder makes you age faster

New atomic clock experiments confirm that relativity's effects on time don't just happen at extreme speeds and in crushing gravitational fields

What's not to love about baby seahorses?

Almost a thousand baby seahorses were born in London this week, but in the wild it's a different story

Titanium foam builds Wolverine bones

Implants made from titanium foam fuse with the human skeleton, offering a better way to repair and strengthen broken bones

 
Saturn was already the solar system's undisputed lord of the rings. Now newly processed images from the Cassini spacecraft are revealing previously unseen halos of infrared auroral light above the planet's poles.
 
Auroras on Saturn form like those on Earth, when charged particles in the solar wind stream down the planet's magnetic field towards its poles, where they excite gas in the upper atmosphere to glow. Some auroras on the ringed planet are also triggered when some of its moons, which are electrically conducting, move through the charged gas surrounding Saturn.
 
Tom Stallard of the University of Leicester in the UK and colleagues analysed thousands of infrared images taken of Saturn's atmosphere and rings and picked out faint signals from auroras (see green glow in picture). The new observations will allow scientists to study how the auroras vary in time, revealing how they are affected by both the solar wind and the direction of the planet's own magnetic field. "We've really only begun to scratch the surface of this fantastic data set," says Stallard.

"Put the courgette down, lady" (Image: Mike Tan.C .T/Shutterstock)

Rowan Hooper, news editor

I'm glad it's not just me who loves stories about encounters between bears and humans.

As I write, at least 541 news sources around the world including The Guardian and the BBC have picked up the story of a Montana woman throwing a courgette (aka a zucchini) at a bear she encountered in her house.

It reminded me of a story of a man gathering mushrooms in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, who was attacked and bitten by a bear. What the bear wasn't expecting was that the mushroom picker was a judo expert, who simply threw the bear on its back. The doubly-startled bear picked itself up and ran.

Catherine de Lange, reporter

Let's face it, we can never see too many stories about male animals that gestate their young and give birth. And when the babies are as insanely supercute as this, so much the better. But - there's always a but - seahorses in the wild aren't doing so well.

A record-breaking 918 baby short-snouted seahorses were born at London Zoo's aquarium on Monday and caught on camera.

Famed for their unusual gestation process - whereby the male is equipped with a 'brood pouch' and goes through pregnancy and birth - seahorses are notoriously hard to breed:

Green Machine: Wind farms make like a fish

The dynamics of fish schooling will help wind farms produce more juice if tests are successful

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

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

Forget Jurassic Park, we're loving the Jurassic Coast

A 150 km stretch of the southern England coastline, the Jurassic Coast contains some 185 million years of Earth history

Future interiors: Closet zaps your dirty clothes

Putting clothes away in the closet can be a drag, but there would be added incentive with this space-saving idea

Whooping cough epidemic suggests bacteria are adapting

Thirteen babies have died of whooping cough in rich nations, and it looks like the germs responsible are adapting to vaccination

Large proton halo sparks devilish row

A dispute has broken out over how to square a shocking new measurement for the radius of the proton with a pillar of particle physics

Oil company to build longest floating vessel ever

Shell's proposed 468-metre floating liquefied natural gas plant will extract and process gas off the coast of Australia

Robots on TV: Rescue bot knows, um, what you mean

New speech-recognition and task management tools are preparing robots for search and rescue missions

Meet Kosmoceratops, the horniest vegetarian dinosaur

Supersized head and multiple horns are order of the day for "lost continent" dinosaurs

The sun joins the climate club

Vilified as the bête noire of climate science, solar activity may have subtle effects on regional climate patterns

Avatar therapy: From couch to cyberspace

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

Brain-hacking art: Making an emotional impression

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

David Stock, Multimedia researcher

This image shows Kimmeridge Clay formations at Broad Bench, Dorset, UK, part of Britain's Jurassic Coast.

Kimmeridge Clay is no ordinary potting clay: it is the main source rock for most of Europe's oil fields - and it also contains many important fossils.

A 150 km stretch of the southern England coastline, the Jurassic Coast is a record of some 185 million years of Earth history. Giant marine reptiles, plesiosaurs and, more recently, a pliosaur specimen have all been uncovered here.

The image is part of a new exhibition that features 100 aerial photographs highlighting Britain's human and natural geographical landscapes.

(Image: Dave White/Royal Geographical Society)

Future interiors: inventions for compact homes

Young designers compete to predict the best scientific solution to overcrowding in Electrolux's Design Lab 2010 competition

Ape dung reveals gorilla origin of malaria

An analysis of ape faeces suggests humans started out malaria-free - then caught it from gorillas

Deceptive robots hint at machine self-awareness

A robot that tricks its opponent in a game of hide-and-seek is a step towards machines that can predict our thoughts, intentions and feelings

Dimensions vanish in quantum gravity

On tiny scales, 3D space may give way to mere lines. So say quantum gravity researchers, who aim to unite quantum mechanics with general relativity

Brain scans may help fix criminal responsibility

Lawyers may soon be able to offer a defence of immaturity based on an accused person's brain scan

How wind may have parted the sea for Moses

Computer simulations show that the easterly wind described in Exodus 14 may have been able to open a land bridge for the Israelites' escape from Egypt

Robots on TV: AI goes back to baby basics

A new project aims to explore cognitive theory - and advance artificial intelligence - by modelling a robot on the behaviour of a toddler

Brain-hacking art: Virtual reality, the old way

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

Just chillin' - molecules that steady quantum computers

Chilled strontium fluoride molecules would make great qubits because they resist outside interference

'Off-grid' cellphone towers could save lives

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

Half the world's plant names weeded out

Botanists tidying up the global list of flower species have cut out almost half because they turned out to be the same species by different monikers

Zoologger: Horror fly returns from the dead

The bone skipper, which feeds on rotten flesh and was the first fly to be declared extinct because of human activity, has made a surprise comeback

Think or swim: Can we hold back the oceans?

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

Brain-hacking art: Twisting mirrors, unreal shadows

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

Retinal cone cells transplanted into blind mice

Cone cells vital for colour vision have been transplanted successfully for the first time, taking us a step closer to restoring vision to the blind

Mars moon may have formed like our own

The Martian moon Phobos was thought to be a captured asteroid, but new observations suggest it coalesced from debris blasted off its mother planet, like Earth's moon

Development goals: five years to save the world

The Millennium Development Goals invite cynicism like few other global agreements, but science-based interventions are working

Debora MacKenzie, consultant

A summit of 140 world leaders is meeting in New York this week to once again discuss the Millennium Development Goals.

This is a bit poetic: New Yorkers are renowned for a certain cynicism, and the MDGs invite cynicism like few other global agreements. They seem to set impossible goals for making the world a much less miserable place by 2015 - a mere five years from now.

Yet the news from New York is not entirely bad.

The MDGs, as captured in their childlike logo, want to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; get every child into primary school; promote women's equality; cut child deaths; improve maternal health; fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and other scourges; ensure environmental sustainability; and build a partnership between rich and poor countries that results in development.

You can see why eyes roll at glib-sounding aspirations like "ensure environmental sustainability". Predictably, academics emerged this week to charge that it was all too simplistic.

Robots on TV: 'Joystick' for a diver's mechanical mate

Divers exploring shipwrecks and underwater caves could control robot assistants more safely and easily with a waterproof tablet computer

Large Hadron Collider spies hints of infant universe

The LHC has revealed hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds

How mouse hack caused chaos on Twitter

Many Twitter users briefly lost control of their accounts today, after a bug appeared on the social networking site

Anxious stem cell scientists await ruling

Scientists in the US face mounting disruption to federally funded research as they await a court ruling over whether their work can continue

Innovation: What's the right path for indoor satnav?

Nascent indoor positioning and navigation systems might share the runaway success of GPS satnav - if we can agree how they should work

Desirable daisies lure male flies with offer of sex

Orchids aren't the only love cheats - daisies, too, get male insects to spread pollen by mimicking female flies

Six ways that artists hack your brain

How does art dazzle the eye and fool the brain? Neuroscientists are starting to reveal the illusions worked into some of the world's most famous paintings

Bjørn Lomborg: Use technology to fight climate change

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

Is there a Moore's law for science?

Can the rate of past discoveries be used to predict future ones? Researchers are testing the idea with exoplanets, and say the first habitable exo-Earth could be found in May

Transgenic Indian superspuds pack more protein

Genetically modified spuds contain more protein and the plants yield more potatoes, the first time that a simple modification has increased yield

Robots draw graffiti over London landmark

A UK art installation asks you to provide messages for car-building robots to spell out in giant letters made of light

Jamie Condliffe, reporter

Thousands of Twitter users briefly lost control of their accounts today after a flaw on Twitter's website was hacked.

The flaw caused other people's messages to pop up when you move your mouse across a link - without even having to click on it. That means that simply moving your cursor across the Twitter website disrupted your account - and passed on the problem to others. Gizmodo has a video of the problem in action.

The problem also caused browsers to redirect to a hard-core pornography site, as well as filling users' Twitter pages with giant letters, rendering the messaging service useless.

Soon after the problem appeared, Graham Cluley, security expert at Sophos, said on his blog, "It looks like many users are using the flaw for fun and games," but warned of the potential for more malicious uses, such as spam advertising.

Volcano breath test promises eruption early warning

A new sensor that monitors the gases venting from a volcano could give us more warning next time it threatens to erupt

Seeing red as acid leaks in east China

An acid leak from an abandoned chemical plant in China blanketed its surroundings in a dark red mist at the end of last week

Robots on TV: Five glimpses of future machines

Robots are getting smarter and more responsive, from the domestic servant self-starter to the fearless rescuer with an ear for an "um"

Brain's grey matter helps you introspect

Neuroscientists have identified an area of the brain that is larger in introspective individuals

Goodbye, nature vs nurture

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

Can video games be art?

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

City-dwelling helped us evolve resistance to disease

Ancient urban living made our ancestors more resistant to tuberculosis, a trait they have passed on to their descendants

Untagged: Software recognises animals it's seen before

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

Today Playstation Move, tomorrow Playstation Mind?

Sony's new motion-tracking controller Move is getting the thumbs-up from reviewers - but even more immersive gaming is set to emerge soon

Arctic bugs may have the longest life-cycle on Earth

With a hibernation period of up to 100 million years, bacteria discovered on the Arctic sea floor may have the longest life cycle of any known organism

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

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

Zeros to heroes: Ulcer truth was hard to stomach

No one would believe that bacteria caused stomach ulcers - until Barry Marshall swallowed some

Women with the baby blues process emotion differently

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

Zeros to heroes: The long wait to speak in code

Digital sound was invented in 1937 - decades before the technology to use it had been developed

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

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

World's smallest fridge could chill quantum computers

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

Jamie Condliffe, reporter

Do not adjust your monitor: the bright red shade of this picture is actually a result of an acid leak, not your faulty computer.

The streets of Jinhua in eastern China's Zhejiang province have been shrouded in dark red and yellow toxic fumes after acid leaked from an abandoned chemical plant on Friday.

The leak was halted by local emergency workers within 2 hours, and no casualties were reported.

(Image: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features)

New moves from Playstation (Image: Kiyoshi Ota/Getty)

Helen Knight, technology reporter

You're running through an abandoned laboratory when suddenly a zombie leaps out at you from behind a door. With one quick flick of your wrist you slash the zombie with your virtual knife, and then you stare at the screen and use your thoughts alone to will a cabinet to fall on top of him.

This kind of video gaming isn't quite here yet, but it's round the corner. Sony's new highly sensitive motion-sensing controller, the Playstation Move, launched this weekend. It's one of a series of devices in the pipeline that promise much more immersive gaming than is possible on today's consoles.

Like the Nintendo Wii, the wireless wand uses internal sensors - a gyrometer and an accelerometer - to measure the angle at which the device is held, and the speed at which it is swung.

New pi record exploits Yahoo's computers

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

Cousin virus suggests HIV may be deadly for millennia

Simian immunodeficiency virus, which does not cause AIDS but gave us HIV, seems far older than we thought - dashing hopes that HIV might weaken soon

Zeros to heroes: Rogue brain-killing proteins

Before winning his Nobel prize, Stanley Prusiner was ridiculed for suggesting that something he called a prion caused spongiform brain diseases

Hello stranger, your driving stinks

A smartphone app that recognises vehicle number plates allows drivers who have never met to communicate, says Duncan Graham-Rowe

What caused San Francisco's gas pipeline explosion?

Last week's explosion of a high-pressure gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, raises troubling questions about ageing US infrastructure, says Jeff Hecht

It ain't over till the fat Klingon sings

Trekkies-cum-opera enthusiasts, your day has finally arrived: Klingon opera has come to Earth, says David Shiga

Antibiotics play hell with gut flora

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?

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

Revolutionary medical images now coming in the mail

A new series of stamps issued by the British Royal Mail celebrates some of the most important medical discoveries in the country since the late 19th century

California's dolphins suffer mystery skin lesions

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

Light trapped on curved surfaces

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

Zeros to heroes: Tall tales or the truth of tiny life?

When a 17th-century Dutch draper told London's finest minds he had seen "animalcules" through his home-made microscope, they took some convincing

Real spray-on clothes to hit the catwalk

Forget weaving and stitching clothes. A new material could be sprayed directly onto your body and have you ready to go out in minutes

Crater map rekindles debate over moon impacts

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has mapped more than 5000 large craters on the moon, providing clues to the origin of the moon's biggest scars

US assessment of terrorist threats poor, says panel

The US Department of Homeland Security needs better models to assess the risks posed by terrorists, an expert panel concludes

Jeff Hecht, consultant

Last week's explosion of a 54-year-old, 76-centimetre (30-inch) diameter high-pressure natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, raises troubling questions about ageing US infrastructure. The explosion and subsequent fire, fuelled by leaking gas, destroyed many houses and killed at least four people, with more deaths suspected.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, workers from Pacific Gas and Electric, which operated the line, needed 2 hours to stop the gas flow. Modern pipelines have automated valves that stop gas flow when sensors detect a pressure drop. But to shut off the old pipeline, workers had to retrieve keys and drive to two secured sites 1.5 to 2 kilometres from the fire, then manually crank valves shut.

Duncan Graham-Rowe, contributor

If you have ever wanted to send a grumpy message to a fellow driver telling them what an inconsiderate road-user or parker they are, you can now do so.

First take a snap of the other vehicle's licence plate using the phone's camera. Then a smartphone app called Bump will forward it to a database where Bump's recognition software will match the car to the owner's phone number, provided they have registered for the service. Bump will then forward messages without revealing the phone number, effectively putting strangers in touch with each other.

The app was launched this week in California, where the La Jolla company is based, as part of the DEMO Conference in Santa Clara. Bump already allows iPhone and Android smartphone users to pair devices and exchange information simply by physically bumping them together.

Progressive Automotive X Prize: the winners

Almost three-and-a-half years after the X Prize Foundation launched a competition for affordable super-efficient cars, the winners have been announced

Chemical patterns on DNA mark out obesity genes

Epigenetic changes - changes to gene activity that occur during a person's life - could flag up people at risk of becoming obese

IVF has best chance of success in spring

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

Blood disorder cured - a first for gene therapy

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?

Russia and Norway slice up the Arctic

The struggle for control of the Arctic, with its immense oil and gas reserves, will only accelerate now that the Barents Sea has been carved up

Zeros to heroes: The man who learned to fly

George Cayley knew how to make a plane a century before the Wright brothers took off. If only he'd got the internal combustion engine to work

Huge fish kill - a common sight in Louisiana

A large fish kill has been found in Louisiana - but state biologists have determined the BP oil spill is not at fault

'Paradigm shift' in how we treat skin cancer

A cancer drug that targets a gene mutation linked to melanoma heralds a new era of cancer treatment, says Miriam Frankel

Hendrix's soundman: How I invented Jimi's guitar sound

Meet Roger Mayer, the navy acoustics engineer who created sound effects for the giants of the 1960s rock scene

Graveyard DNA rewrites African American history

DNA from 15th-century skeletons buried on a Caribbean island reveals that Columbus had African shipmates

Receding gums: What ails Australia's iconic trees?

Eucalyptus trees are dying all over Australia. To save them, we might have to learn to play with fire

Zeros to heroes: How we almost missed the ozone hole

The axe was poised over the British Antarctic Survey's ozone monitoring programme when it noticed an awfully big hole in the sky

Study brings pre-eclampsia test one step closer

Metabolic markers could be the key to early diagnosis of the dangerous pregnancy disorder, says Catherine de Lange

Nokia developing 3D rival to Google Street View

The Finnish phone manufacturer's version will render scenes in true 3D - and could provide computer games makers with cheap real-world locations

Best of web video - September 2010

From shape-shifting sea monsters to alien worlds and frozen lightning, New Scientist brings you the best science videos on the web this month

The real-world technology of Halo

The launch of the Halo Reach video game has been fuelled by jetpacks and an artistic robot, says Richard Fisher

Bad breath sniffer to hunt for life on Mars

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

Michael Marshall, environment reporter

The ongoing struggle for control of the Arctic, with its immense reserves of oil and gas, has taken a new turn. Russia and Norway have divided up the Barents Sea between them.

The two countries had been arguing about who should own the Sea for 40 years, initially because they wanted fishing rights but lately out of a hankering for its petroleum reserves.

It's good news for the two countries, who can now start using the area, but probably bad news for the Arctic itself.

Not a road, but dead fish. This large fish kill was reported last Friday in Plaquemines parish, Louisiana. Associated Press reports that biologists at the state department of wildlife and fisheries have determined the BP oil spill is not at fault.

Summer dead zones are common in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by the large amounts of fertiliser that get flushed down the Mississippi river, which triggers a dramatic drop in the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water. Researchers have been concerned that microbes breaking down the oil from the BP spill might exacerbate this year's dead zone and have been closely monitoring oxygen levels in the Gulf.

(Image: Plaquemines Parish Government)

Miriam Frankel, reporter

A new genetically targeted cancer drug has proven successful in treating malignant melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer. Patients with advanced melanoma usually die within a year of diagnosis.

Over half of all people with melanoma carry mutations in the B-RAF gene that accelerates cancerous cell growth. The new drug, PLX4032, developed by US biotechnology company Plexxikon based in Berkeley, California, inhibits the mutated B-RAF gene, preventing it from stimulating cancerous growth.

In 24 of the 32 participants with the mutated gene taking part in the phase 1 trials of the drug, the tumours shrank by 30 per cent, and in two people disappeared entirely.

Catherine de Lange, reporter

Pre-eclampsia can seriously threaten the lives of pregnant women and their babies, so the promise of a new method to predict whether a women might develop the condition early on in pregnancy is welcome news.

An international team of scientists has identified a set of metabolites, the intermediate products of metabolism, found in most of the pregnant women who go on to develop the condition, but not in those that do not. These differences could be used as the basis for a predictive test, according to a study in the journal Hypertension.

In  The Daily Mail, Philip Baker, one of the authors, predicts that a test based on the metabolites could be cheaply available to all pregnant women in the not-too-distant future.

The "metabolic fingerprint" test could save the lives of thousands of women, especially in the developing world.

Glacial armour lets mountains rise high

Ice rivers normally strip rock off mountains, but if they get cold enough they can turn into sheets of protective armour

Electron vortex could trap atoms

A twisting beam of electrons could let us manipulate atoms and map magnetic fields inside materials

Autism drug aims to balance brain signals

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

Transgenic fish swimming towards a plate near you

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

Ancient South American megabird had 6-metre wingspan

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

Zeros to heroes: Putting the 'i' in iPods

They exasperated their 16th-century discoverer, but imaginary numbers have given us everything from quantum mechanics to portable music

How computer games give us medical heart-throb movies

MRI machines make crisp images of internal organs - now gaming technology can turn them into real-time movies

High-tech art that is nothing without you

Chemist-turned-artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates large-scale interactive installations that combine architecture, technology and performance art

Polio eradication programme feels the pinch

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

Songs in the key of EEG

A new collaboration combines improvised jazz with music that's created using EEG signals from the brain, says Michael Brooks

Space junk: Hunting zombies in outer space

If we don't deal with orbital debris, Earth will one day have rings of refuse - and we'll be cut off from space

Zeros to heroes: The tragic fate of a genetic pioneer

We now know that gene activity can change significantly without changes to DNA - but did a shamed scientist who killed himself in 1926 get there first?

Zoologger: Even parasitic worms have a divided society

A fluke that lives in the bodies of marine snails has a caste system like that of social insects - the first such animal known to do so

World's biggest sandblaster observed from space

An Envisat image captures the flow of Saharan sand and dust as it is blown westward, out to sea

The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite captured this curl of sand and dust as it was blown westward, moving out to sea from the Sahara desert.

The Sahara contributes about half of all of the dust dumped into the atmosphere every year. This image shows the dust trail blowing west over Africa and across the North Atlantic before heading north at the Cape Verde islands. Saharan dust regularly travels as far as South America, helping to fertilise the Amazon rainforest.

Earlier this week the University of Alabama in Huntsville announced a three-year project looking at how Saharan dust affects atmospheric temperature. The large dust particles can both absorb solar radiation, converting it to heat, and reflect radiation back into space, and thus having a cooling effect.

"One thing we want to do is calculate how reflective the dust is," says project leader Sundar Christopher. He adds that because climate models are not very sophisticated in the way they handle dust, the research will help replace current assumptions with real data.

(Image: ESA)

Religious rite gives evolution a helping hand

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

Why BP's failure to mention safety culture is problem

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

Zeros to heroes: The invention that's best hidden

A car with just two wheels looked too terrifying to catch on, but the secret of its amazing balancing act is at the heart of today's guidance systems

Quark excitement: LHC surpasses rivals for first time

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

Green machine: Why our walls really should have ears

Plants named after the lugholes of elephants and lambs are some of the best vegetation for giving our cities a green coat

M-theory: Doubts linger over godless multiverse

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

Your role in wildlife crime

The illicit wildlife trade is intimately linked to wealth and organised crime. Conservation groups should target consumers, says Rosaleen Duffy

Towel-folding robot now on general sale

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

Supercrops: Fixing the flaws in photosynthesis

Many vital crops capture the sun's energy in a surprisingly inefficient way. A borrowed trick or two could make them far more productive

YouTube tries live video streaming

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

Zeros to heroes: What's the use of electricity?

Michael Faraday built an electric motor in 1821 and a rudimentary generator a decade later - but half a century passed before electric power took off

Zeros to heroes: Bayes's probability puzzle

What links modern cosmology to 18th-century musings on billiards? The answer lies in a theorem devised by amateur mathematician Thomas Bayes

Eureka! How moments of genius happen

Are creative breakthroughs the product of conscious thought? Andrew Robinson says so in Sudden Genius, but there may be more to the story

Zeros to heroes: 10 unlikely ideas that changed the world

From imaginary numbers to gyroscopic monorails, we pick out some of the most improbable ideas to have hit the big time

Rich-world diseases could hijack poor world's biotech

Biotech firms in developing countries could abandon diseases of the poor and switch to developing drugs for the rich, under pressure from big pharma

Family win $1.5 million in autism-vaccine payout

But this first ever payout may be a one-off, related to a rare inherited mutation in mitochondrial DNA, says Andy Coghlan

Nobel physicist: Building Hubble's heir in deep space

John Mather reveals the challenges of getting the James Webb Space Telescope working on site - a million and a half kilometres away

CrackBerries and games addicts: Beware an internet hit

From virtual gaming to social media and smartphones, we are surrounded by online technology - and it's proving unhealthily addictive

Navigation app gives you freedom to explore

A smartphone navigation tool promises to keep you heading in the right direction while letting you follow your feet

Born-again solar cells are more efficient

Solar cells can be made more efficient over their lifetime if they continually regenerate their light-harvesting mechanisms

Andy Coghlan, reporter

The family of Hannah Poling, a nine-year-old girl, is to be the first to receive compensation from the US federal government for health problems associated with routine childhood vaccinations, reports CBS News.

As well as receiving a payout of $1.5 million, the family will receive $500,000 per year to pay for the child's care. But while CBS reports that 4800 other cases are awaiting settlement in the federal vaccine court, Hannah's case may be a one-off.

She began showing signs of autism, with accompanying screaming fits, after she'd been vaccinated against nine diseases in July 2000, aged 18 months.

Dope art that makes you feel good

This micrograph shows crystals of dopamine - the chemical released when we do naturally rewarding things like eating and procreating. It also rewarded the photographer with a prize

Innovation: TV networks to become social networks

The union of social networking and TV technology means big changes are coming soon to your living room

Steampunk chip takes the heat

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

Civil war in Africa has no link to climate change

Prosperity rather than climate change seems to govern the incidence of civil war in Africa

Iron overload may accelerate Alzheimer's

Zinc-containing plaques that form in Alzheimer's disease prevent proteins from clearing out toxic iron and stop neurons from signalling properly

Do Egyptian mummies have a right to privacy?

The assumption that ancient corpses are fair game for science is beginning to be challenged

Avatars learn gestures to match your tone of voice

Virtual humans need to move like a human when they speak to be more effective in online communications

US navy seeks 'safer' bomb

A variable-yield "dial-a-blast" bomb could reduce the number of innocent people killed or injured during an air attack, the US navy thinks

The book bonobos deserve

Sara Gruen's new book is one of the few novels ever written about bonobos - and hopefully it will raise the profile of these lesser-known apes

The star photographers who captured the night sky

Competition to be Astronomy Photographer of the Year is fierce. We reveal the shots that were stellar enough to come out on top

Magnetic monopole deficit hints that hunt is futile

The maximum number of these hypothetical, lone magnetic charges that can exist in our patch of the universe has been slashed

US stem cell funding freeze lifted - for now

An appeals court has granted a temporary stay to the controversial injunction that last month froze new government grants for embryonic stem cell research

Colin Barras, technology reporter

In the week that marked the 44th anniversary of Star Trek's first TV broadcast, the web has been buzzing with news of a real-world tractor beam.

The device, designed by physicists at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, can shift nanoparticles from one end of a lab bench to the other - 150 centimetres away - using nothing more than a couple of laser beams.

If that sounds far-fetched, a quick hunt through the New Scientist story archive shows that similar technology has been with us for some time - although confined to two dimensions.

This beautiful micrograph shows crystals of dopamine - the chemical released when we do naturally rewarding things like eating and procreating. Dopamine also affects brain processes involved in controlling movement, mood and memory.

Spike Walker, last night's winner of the Royal Photographic Society's Combined Royal Colleges Medal, produced this image by passing polarised light through dopamine crystals. How the crystals refract the light varies depending on their orientation within the sample, causing them to reflect light at different wavelengths. Using this technique highlights more detail in the crystal structure than regular observation through a microscope.

(Image: Spike Walker/Wellcome Images)

2000-year-old pills found in Greek shipwreck

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

Found: natural bridges on the moon

Two rocky arches have been spotted on the moon in images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - they may have been carved by an ancient impact

Birds use optical illusions to get mates

Male bowerbirds play tricks with perspective so females will think they're the big "I am"

Smoking, bad for your fertility and your child's

Would-be mums who smoke risk damaging the fertility of their children

Ancient Greeks spotted Halley's comet

Halley's comet and a meteorite the size of a "wagonload" triggered a turning point in ancient Greek astronomy

Japan to begin drilling for methane in undersea slush

Without conventional fossil fuels to secure its energy demands, Japan is encouraging interest in the methane hydrate deposits in its coastal waters

Caution urged over vitamin B dementia therapy

Claims that large doses of B vitamins could protect against dementia are not quite as dramatic as the headlines suggest, says Jessica Hamzelou

World's most expensive book up for grabs

If you like pictures of snowy owls and have £4 to £6 million spare, this book might be for you

Cane toads aren't quite the bad guys we thought

It's invaded Australia, but the cane toad has not triggered the ecological catastrophe that some predicted

Ghostwriting probe into HRT articles

Scientific papers "ghostwritten" for drug maker Wyeth may have led to hormone replacement therapy being recommended to healthy menopausal women

New formula shows who's really top of the tweeters

The most influential Twitter feeds don't necessarily have the most followers. That's the insight given by a new technique for ranking twitterers

Turing formula poses plain origin for intricate skins

A mathematical-biological mixing dreamed up by code breaker Alan Turing can predict what happens when species with simple skin patterns interbreed

How Google Instant knows what you want

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

Dinosaur with a mysterious fin found

A two-legged dinosaur that had a fin on its back has been discovered - but nobody knows what it was for

Thank the ur-worm for Shakespeare's brain

The hallmark of the human brain - its enormous cortex - can be traced back 600 million years to the ancestor of a primitive worm

Laws of physics may change across the universe

A controversial observation suggests that a constant of physics actually varies in space - it could explain why our corner of the cosmos is just right for life

Jessica Hamzelou, reporter

Can cheap vitamin supplements really defend you from Alzheimer's? In a paper published today, David Smith and colleagues at the University of Oxford have claimed that dosing up on B vitamins can protect an ageing brain from shrinking.

The team instructed a group of 168 people over the age of 70 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to take a 2 year course of either daily vitamin B supplements or placebo pills. The vitamins included folic acid, B6 and B12. Each person had an fMRI brain scan at the start and end of the study, in order to compare how their brains had atrophied or shrunk over the period.

While the brains of the placebo group shrunk by an average of 1.08 per cent per year, those taking vitamin B supplements experienced an average atrophy of "only" 0.76 per cent per year.

If you like this picture of snowy owls and have a spare £4 to £6 million floating around, you might want make a bid for Audubon's book Birds of America when it goes to auction on 7 December at Sothebys, London.

Reputedly the most expensive book in the world to be part of a commercial print run, the book was written and illustrated by John James Audubon (1785-1851), a renowned ornithologist, naturalist and painter. A copy of the same book was auctioned 10 years ago for a world record price of $8.8 million. Only 119 complete copies are known to exist today, 108 of them in museums and libraries.

If this doesn't quite suit your budget, why not try and get hold of a first-edition copy of Darwin's On the Origin of Species: yours for somewhere between £35,000 to £60,000. Or, if your tastes are a little more expensive, get in touch with Bill Gates. In 2007, Gates paid a cool $30.8 million for Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester - but then, that was da Vinci's personal notebook.

(Image: Sotheby's)

MacGregor Campbell, reporter

If you've ever stared at the search box, trying to remember the name of that band your cousin mentioned the other day, Google can now help by completing your thought for you.

Google Instant, which launched on Wednesday, takes auto-complete to an extreme. As you type, possible completions of your query appear in the search box, followed by full potential search results for the search Google thinks you want to make. The old style of auto-complete still required you to select from among a number of candidates in a drop-down box. That function is still there, it's just augmented with actual search results before you're done typing.

As you might expect, searching for all the possible things you might end up wanting to search for is a bit of a headache on the engineering side of things. Google's Ben Gomes explained in this presentation both the technical challenges and some of the techniques his team used to get around them.

Gomes said that Google already serves billions of queries a day and that doing searches on predicted queries multiplies the server burden by a factor of between 10 and 20.

"How do we possibly do this without melting down our data centres?" asked Gomes.

Exotic matter could show up in the LHC this year

The Large Hadron Collider could glimpse sparticles, diquarks and leptoquarks sooner than thought possible if new-found decay pathways are correct

Brain imaging monitors effect of movie magic

Mining your brain's fundamental response to cinematic action could make movies more moving

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

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

The shark soup massacre and how to stop it

In their book Man and Shark, photographers Paul Hilton and Alex Hofford reveal the extent of the bloody trade in shark fins, says Clint Witchalls

Meet William the Concherer, the dolphin that can fish

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

The eight failures that caused the Gulf oil spill

A long-awaited BP report lists eight reasons for the accident that caused its catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Grave soil whispers time of death tip-off

Crime scene investigators should take a closer look at the soil around a buried corpse to more accurately estimate when the person died

Escher-like internet map could speed online traffic

A new map of the internet, produced using the hyperbolic geometry employed by Escher, could help establish quicker routing options for online traffic

Zoologger: Shrimp plays chicken with its sex change

The peppermint shrimp changes from male to hermaphrodite - if nobody else will

Acoustic trick gives 'dumbphones' touchscreen feel

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

Junkie food: Tastes your brain can't resist

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

Bees and climate change cleared in pollination mystery

Even without climate change, even without the decline of bees, pollination is in a downward spiral. And nobody knows why

First Irish genome sequenced

Analysis of the genome of an Irishman reveals that his compatriots are genetically distinct from their European neighbours

Cosmic spiral created by whirling stars

A ghostly vortex in the constellation Pegasus is caused by a dying star that is circling an unseen companion

A near-perfect spiral encircles the star LL Pegasi in the constellation Pegasus. Astronomers suspect the dust-swaddled system actually harbours two stars that orbit each other every 800 years.

One star is nearing the end of its life, shedding gas that is expanding outwards at roughly 50,000 kilometres per hour. This gas traces out a spiral pattern because the star shedding it moves in a circle as it orbits its companion.

(Image: ESA/NASA/R. Sahai)

Bird flu jumps to pigs

H5N1's jump to pigs brings the virus a step closer to a human pandemic

Cost-cutting bacteria reap benefits of energy thrift

Building throwaway proteins on the cheap gives bacteria an evolutionary advantage

Robotic butlers, oily wrecks and avatars

This month's New Scientist TV includes the training of a robot servant, high-tech deep sea salvage and body language for virtual stand-ins

The natural selection of leaders

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

Master gene-shuffler makes us all different

DNA fingerprint pioneer Alec Jeffreys has found a key gene behind human variation and evolution

Immortal signals promise perfect web video

A technique to revitalise optical signals so that they never die could provide a route to faster internet connections

Why wartime wrecks are slicking time bombs

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

Money can buy you happiness - up to a point

The more money people earn the higher their overall life satisfaction, but your day-to-day emotional wellbeing improves only up to a $75,000 salary

Losing weight may pollute the blood

Weight loss releases chemical pollutants into the blood, which can stick around, increasing the risk of diabetes, cancer and dementia

Magic mushrooms reduce anxiety over cancer

The active chemical in magic mushroom has been shown to lessen anxiety and improve mood in people with late-stage cancer

Forest carbon stores may be massively overestimated

We may have to dramatically revise our estimates of how much carbon rainforests contain - apparently similar forests hold vastly different amounts

The Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, is home to the biggest greenhouse in the world - and it now has a giant viewing platform that looks out over the rainforest it contains. At 55 metres tall, the platform is taller than the Tower of London.

The Eden Project opened to the public in 2001, and is made up of a number of giant domes called "biomes" that house plant species from all over the world. Now, visitors can get a bird's-eye view of the rainforest biome, seeing giant tress such as kapok and balsa, and even resident wildlife such as tree frogs and tiny birds known as Sulawesi white-eyes.

(Image: Matt Cardy/Getty)

Colin Barras, technology reporter

Update: One website has now reverse engineered the code to demonstrate that the round bubbles in Google's new Doodle were created using CSS3, the latest version of the style sheet language used to style web pages.

Google users are familiar with the Google doodle. To mark anniversaries, special dates or famous lives, the search giant redesigns the Google logo on its home page. Most recently, on 4 September, the firm celebrated the 25th anniversary of the finding of the buckyball with a spinning version of the carbon molecule.

But Google's latest doodle has many people baffled. Today, visitors to Google.co.uk and a number of other European Google sites - but as I write, not Google.com - are met with a Google logo composed of colourful circles. Hover the cursor too near to the logo and the circles dance away - but leave the cursor still and they gradually return, settling down to form the company's name.

But what does it mean?

Kate McAlpine, reporter

Cracking the oligopoly on space held by a few government agencies and the very rich isn't quite going to plan. The first rocket that the non-profit, non-governmental Copenhagen Suborbitals attempted to send into the stratosphere, with a test dummy for a passenger, failed to take off on the first attempt.

According to the BBC: "When Sunday's countdown reached zero, a puff of smoke was seen from the rocket but nothing happened."

By anyone's standards, the mission was daring. Consisting of a cylindrical capsule that snugly fits around a person, with a clear plexiglass dome so that the astronaut can see out, the Tycho Brahe 1 rocket resembles a human canonball.

The BBC reports that the "valve controlling the flow of very cold, liquid oxygen to the motor had frozen up" and the Copenhagen Post sheds some light on why: the power to the valve's heater - a hairdryer, purchased at a Danish supermarket for under £12 - was cut off.

Innovation: CERN collides with a patent reality

CERN, the organisation that gave away the World Wide Web, is finally thinking about protecting its intellectual property

What can deliver snakebite medicine where it's needed?

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

Astronomers are putting stars in their skies

Astronomers can now use laser beams to create "artificial stars" - allowing them to calibrate the Very Large Telescope in the process

New Zealand quake was 'known unknown'

The New Zealand quake that struck over the weekend happened on a previously unknown fault, says Miriam Frankel

Fighting back against neurosexism

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

Locust brains could thwart superbug plagues

Extracts from the brains of locusts and cockroaches can kill superbugs such as MRSA - new antibiotics could follow

Tech heavyweights set to move music to the cloud

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

Swarming spacecraft to self-destruct for greater good

Future space probes that work in cooperative swarms must sacrifice themselves if they begin to fail and risk damaging their comrades, says NASA

What's in a name? The words behind thought

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

Tilting stars may explain backwards planets

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

Mobile chargers could keep electric cars juiced up

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

How animals evolved personalities

Being social could drive the evolution of personality differences

LED-studded skirt makes a bright fashion statement

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

Eternal black holes are the ultimate cosmic safes

Normally, black holes evaporate over time, a process that probably releases information about their contents - but there may be a way to create black holes that stand the test of time

Astronomers have created an "artificial star" by shining a laser beam from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Cerro Paranal, Chile. The glow helps astronomers to achieve sharper images by working as a reference point to correct their instruments, allowing them to adjust for the blurring effect caused by the Earth's atmosphere.

The artificial star is formed when the laser energises sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere, causing them to emit a yellow light. This layer of sodium lies about 90 kilometres above the Earth's surface and is thought to have been created when meteorites entered the Earth's atmosphere.

(Image: ESO/Yuri Beletsky)

See more: Pictures of the Day

Miriam Frankel, reporter

The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck the South Island of New Zealand on Saturday occurred on a previously unknown fault.

The quake occurred at 4.35 am local time due to faulting in the Pacific plate. New Zealand lies above a region where the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates collide, says the British Geological Survey.

The earthquake struck around 50 kilometres west-northwest of the town Christchurch - New Zealand's second largest city. Although at least 90 buildings were substantially damaged, nobody died during the event, reports the BBC, perhaps due to fortunate timing.

According to geophysics researcher Euan Smith at the Victoria University of Wellington, it happened on a previously unknown fault.

Pakistan's flood weather eased Atlantic hurricanes

The stalled weather pattern behind floods in Pakistan and a heatwave in Russia may have delayed the start of the Atlantic hurricane season

Trojan asteroids make planetary scientist lose sleep

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

Computer games may be spawning reckless drivers

Young drivers who played car-based computer games in their mid-teens are more likely to say they drive fast and dangerously in the real world

Humans with monkeypox virus cases rocket

A 20-fold jump in the number of humans with a smallpox-related virus in Congo has provoked a call to assess its global threat

Why your brain flips over visual illusions

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

Nano-engineered cotton promises to wipe out water bugs

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

Why the 'sixth extinction' will be unpredictable

The fallout from the current mass extinction of life on Earth will be far from simple to predict

Second super-fast flip of Earth's poles found

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

Briefing: How bad is the new Gulf oil rig fire?

Less than five months after the largest oil spill in US history, another fire has occurred on an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico

Physicists divided over life extension for US collider

A panel of physicists recommends keeping Fermilab's Tevatron collider alive for an extra three years, but others worry about collateral damage

Ancient bacteria could improve anti-ageing cosmetics

Cyanobacteria survived strong UV exposure for a billion years - the secret to their success could be key to new sunscreens and "anti-ageing" products

Space ribbon deployed to surf Earth's magnetic field

Future spacecraft could change their orbits simply by unfurling electrically conducting tethers - Japan has now tested one in a suborbital mission

Instant Expert: The unseen universe

There is much more to the cosmos than meets the eye. Astrophysicist Michael Rowan-Robinson explores what invisible rays from radio to gamma have shown us

A birds-eye view of hurricane Earl

An astronaut on the International Space Station has captured a serene-looking view of hurricane Earl - but things aren't so calm down below

Smart USB speakers pump up the volume from laptops

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

Hawking hasn't changed his mind about God

Stephen Hawking's new book is the biggest science news story of the day. Has he suddenly given up a religious belief, asks Roger Highfield

Photo competition: Science in motion

Throughout September New Scientist is running a photo competition - we want your photos on the theme of movement and science

Can US Congress overturn stem-cell funding freeze?

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

Stephen Hawking says there's no theory of everything

In his new book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking argues that there is no single theory of reality because there is no single reality

Weird water lurking inside giant planets

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

Laser-powered helicopter hovers for hours

Lasers can bring down remote-piloted aircraft - but a new demo shows they can also keep the craft airborne

Swine flu drug in narcolepsy probe

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

Ultimate eclipse photo: The film has been developed

In the last of his posts about photographing the eclipse, Dan Falk compares his analogue and digital images. But which does he think is best?

'Medical marijuana' hits the small screen

The first advert for medicinal cannabis was aired on television this week in California. Is this a sign of things to come, asks Catherine de Lange

Is criminal profiling flawed and disorderly?

It's a staple of cop shows, but the jury's still out on claims that a criminal's identity can be deduced from their modus operandi

'Brain training' may just hide symptoms of dementia

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

This serene-looking view of hurricane Earl was taken aboard the International Space Station as it passed over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday. Taken by NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock, it shows the distinctive eye of the storm, which spans 28 kilometres.

Though it looks calm from above, on Earth the storm is gaining strength. Earl is the seventh storm of the season, and if it reaches land it could be the most powerful storm in the US since hurricane Andrew in 1992.

See more: Pictures of the Day

(Image: NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth)

Catherine de Lange, reporter

This week, a television commercial advertising cannabis for medical use was aired in California - the first time such an ad has been broadcast, says the network responsible. The controversial advert is being screened on the Fox network's Sacramento affiliate KTXL and has been met with a mixed reaction, according to Fox's own coverage.

Elissa Harrington, reporting for Fox, says:

It'll be interesting if these become more common and if any restrictions will be placed on these advertisements.

That's probably a moot point, considering that advertising of prescription medication is legal in the US. The commercial adds to an apparent growing trend in acceptance of the use of prohibited drugs for therapeutic benefits.

(Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty)

Void that is truly empty solves dark energy puzzle

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

Psychoactive drugs: From recreation to medication

With trials showing positive results from the treatment of cancer to alcohol addiction, could illegal drugs be heading for the medical mainstream?

Shape-shifting robot compensates for damaged limb

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

Zoologger: Death by world's longest animal

A venomous medusa-like beast as long as a blue whale has emerged as an unlikely defender of the world's oceans

For self-healing concrete, just add bacteria and food

Adding limestone-forming bacteria to the mix could help the concrete seal dangerous cracks on its own

Road to cut off Serengeti migration route

Tanzania's government plans to build a road through Serengeti National Park, cutting through the migratory route of 2 million wildebeest and zebra

Arctic oil and gas drilling ready to take off

Oil drilling in Greenland's Arctic waters began last week, angering environmentalists. But it's nothing compared with the oil and gas rush that's coming

Conservation and compassion: First do no harm

In putting conservation into practice, we often cause great suffering to animals. Marc Bekoff argues that we need a new ethical perspective

Wonder conductors will spin up cooler computers

Newly discovered materials could clear the way for blisteringly fast laptops and smartphones that don't warm our laps or singe our ears

Volcano wakes from four-century sleep

A Sumatran volcano dormant for 400 years has erupted, spewing smoke and ash several kilometres into the air

Nicholas Carr: Surfing our way to stupid

By reshaping our minds, the internet is robbing us of the ability to think critically and creatively, says the author of The Shallows

Success, not size 0, makes women want to eat less

Encouraging models to put on weight may not be enough to prevent the influence that media images have on rising rates of eating disorders

Green machine: Perfecting the plant way to power

Efforts to develop solar-powered water splitters are starting to bear fruit

Indonesia's Mount Sinabung continued erupting yesterday, two days after it sprang back into life after over 400 years of inactivity.

30,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters, as the volcano spewed smoke and ash several kilometres into the air. Thousands have since returned to the area, despite the risk of further eruptions.

The volcano, in the Karo Regency of North Sumatra, had not been closely monitored because it was believed to be relatively safe.

(Image: BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images)