App takes the strain out of tricky moral dilemmas

FACING a moral quandary and want to do the right thing? Well, there's now an app for that.Ethical Decision Making, as the iPhone app is helpfully named, doesn't need the details of your problem or the options you're considering. It simply asks you to consider each solution and rate it from five standpoints: utility, virtue, rights, justice and the common good. Each is actually shorthand for a framework developed by moral philosophers over the centuries....

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Scotland: What if independence goes horribly wrong?

On 18 September, the people of Scotland will vote on whether their country should become independent of the UK. This article is part of our "Four futures for an independent Scotland" special report, looking at the choices a newly independent Scotland could make IT IS 2062, and the youngest people to vote in Scotland's referendum, then aged 16, are now approaching retirement age. A perfect storm of shifting demographics, dwindling oil and poor health...

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The US is right to indict China's state hacker unit

Continue reading page |1|2 The US is hoping to shock China into talks over its industrial cyber espionage programme, says a foreign relations expert At first glance, the US Justice Department's 31-count indictment of five Chinese military officers for hacking into the computers of six US corporations, in order to steal billions of dollars' worth of industrial secrets, seems a bit odd. No way are Beijing's leaders going to extradite members of their...

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Today on New Scientist

Plastic rubbish takes egg's place in albatross nest Plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is finding its way into albatross nests – and can prove lethal to their youngAmerican chestnut set for genetically modified revival New strains of American chestnuts are resistant to a devastating fungus and pass on resistance to their offspring, suggesting that the trees can be restoredPirates incoming! Ship radar keeps watch and hits back A system called...

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Plastic rubbish takes egg's place in albatross nest

(Image: Greg Schubert/USFWS) Our rubbish has reached the farthest corners of the Earth. This Laysan albatross is practising its nesting skills in one of the world's most remote places – the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. But instead of practising with an abandoned egg as it normally would, it is sitting on a plastic ball used for baseball batting practice.The ball did not come from a local baseball field. It washed ashore from...

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American chestnut set for genetically modified revival

The near-extinct American chestnut looks set to make a comeback. Genetically modified trees, which are resistant to a deadly fungus that has decimated the species, have produced the first resistant chestnuts. From these seeds, countless resistant trees could be grown in the wild.An estimated 4 billion American chestnut trees (Castanea dentata ) once covered the US, accounting for a quarter of all US hardwood trees. But in around 1900, a lethal fungus...

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Pirates incoming! Ship radar keeps watch and hits back

BEFORE dawn on 5 May, two pirates armed with knives boarded a ship in the Sierra Leone port of Freetown. They took the duty cadet hostage, stole some mooring ropes then slipped back into the darkness. No one saw them coming, but a new kind of intelligent radar might have done.The system, called WatchStander, uses radar mounted on either side of a ship to scan the surrounding water for small objects that look like they are moving to intercept. It...

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Ultimate solar system could contain 60 Earths

Why settle for one habitable planet, when you can have 60? An astrophysicist has designed the ultimate star system by cramming in as many Earth-like worlds as possible without breaking the laws of physics. Such a monster cosmic neighbourhood is unlikely to exist in reality, but it could inspire future exoplanet studies.Sean Raymond of Bordeaux Observatory in France started his game of fantasy star system with a couple of ground rules. First, the...

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Scotland: Wind will power the Scots' green ambitions

On 18 September, the people of Scotland will vote on whether their country should become independent of the UK. This article is part of our Four futures for an independent Scotland special report, looking at the choices a newly independent Scotland could make. Scotland is arguably one of the greenest countries in Europe. It produces 40 per cent of Scottish electricity demand from renewable sources, and models suggest this could rise to 67 per cent...

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Scotland: Wind will power the Scots' green ambitions

On 18 September, the people of Scotland will vote on whether their country should become independent of the UK. This article is part of our "Four futures for an independent Scotland" special report, looking at the choices a newly independent Scotland could make SCOTLAND is arguably one of the greenest countries in Europe. It produces 40 per cent of Scottish electricity demand from renewable sources, and models suggest this could rise to 67 per cent...

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Feedback: Primary school puzzler

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more THE Welsh government recently circulated a parents' and carers' guide to literacy and numeracy tests in the country's schools. Feedback now seeks help with our homework, which is to interpret a graph from the guide.It plots "progress score" against school year. The caption explains, perhaps: "progress scores shown are for a child taking...

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SpaceX unveils sleek, reusable Dragon crew capsule

(Image: SpaceX) First cargo, now crew – the uber-modern "space taxi" known as the Dragon V2 is ready for passengers. At an unveiling ceremony yesterday, complete with smoke effects and coloured lights, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave the world its first glimpse of the upgraded Dragon spacecraft.NASA is already using an unpiloted version of Dragon to send cargo to the International Space Station and return valuable gear and scientific experiments. But Musk...

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Curved screens make our brains light up with pleasure

Why are ever more curved-screen gadgets being launched? It seems bendiness has deep aesthetic appeal and will spur new materials and manufacturing methods THE future looks curvy. A spate of gadgets sporting concave displays has already been launched, and the big manufacturers will soon be hurling yet more TVs and smartphones with curved screens on to the shelves. Rumours continue to swirl that even Apple's forthcoming iPhone 6 will bend to the craze...

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Eye candy: Video game visuals that hijack your brain

07:03 30 May 2014Want to get rich out of making video games? Don't worry about winning awards for your graphic artistry – hire some psychologists instead. They can tell you how the simplest of games can hijack our brain's evolved instincts to keep players hooked. Sally Adee and Douglas Heaven Read more: "Obsession engineers: Mind control the Candy Crush way" Image 1 of 7Pattern recognitionHumans like matching up patterns. We're born that way: even...

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Scotland: Four futures for an independent Scotland

On 18 September, the people of Scotland will vote on whether their country should become independent of the UK. This article is part of our "Four futures for an independent Scotland" special report, looking at the choices a newly independent Scotland could make SMALL nations can shape their own destiny, and this can be both a blessing and a curse. If the Scots opt for independence, they would do well to heed other small nations before them.Research...

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Teen growth spurt left Richard III with crooked spine

Shakespeare famously labelled King Richard III a hunchback, but a new analysis suggests England's last Plantagenet king had a different spinal deformity – one with a cause that continues to elude modern medicine.Richard is among the most controversial of English monarchs, accused by some of grabbing the throne by foul means. He held power for just two years before his defeat – and death – at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.Perhaps the earliest...

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Hidden paintings of Angkor Wat appear in digital images

(Image: Antiquity Publications) Ghostly riders, temples, boats and palaces live again after lost paintings at the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia were resurrected using digital techniques.During a 2010 visit, Noel Hidalgo Tan of the Australian National University in Canberra spotted faint traces of red paint on some walls of the temple. Using an algorithm originally developed by NASA, Tan took digital photographs of the decorations (upper image)...

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Suicide watch prison sensor keeps an eye on inmates

A sensor that keeps tabs on inmates’ breathing rate and heartbeat could save lives in the slammer US PRISONS could soon have their fingers on inmates' pulses. A new device that can detect a prisoner's vital signs from a wall or ceiling metres away could be used to tackle steep suicide rates in the penal system.The sensor, which was funded by the US Department of Justice, monitors inmates' heartbeat, breathing and movements for signs of self-harm.Suicide...

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Obsession engineers: Mind control the Candy Crush way

Why are we addicted to games? (Image: Patrick George) How do you design a hit video game? Psychologists are diagnosing what gets us addicted – a recipe for obsession that could hurt or heal us IN APRIL, a landfill in New Mexico disgorged proof of a decades-old rumour.The story goes back to 1983, when James Heller was given an unusual job. His bosses at video-game maker Atari wanted him to drive out to the desert with 750,000 copies of their latest...

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Europe's eagles under threat from vulture-killing drug

A drug that has already obliterated many of India's vultures is now threatening eagles and vultures in Europe and Africa. Golden eagles may be among the species at risk.India's Gyps vultures began disappearing in the 1990s. They were succumbing to a painkiller called diclofenac, which was given to cattle. The drug lurked in the cattle carcasses that the vultures feasted on, got into the birds' bloodstream and destroyed their kidneys.Now it seems...

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We are killing species at 1000 times the natural rate

First the bad news. Humans are driving species to extinction at around 1000 times the natural rate, at the top of the range of an earlier estimate. We also don't know how many species we can afford to lose.Now the good news. Armed with your smartphone, you can help conservationists save them.Interactive map:: Where the threatened wild things are The new estimate of the global rate of extinction comes from Stuart Pimm of Duke University in Durham,...

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Scotland: Oil and gas at heart of Scots' future wealth

On 18 September, the people of Scotland will vote on whether their country should become independent of the UK. This article is part of our "Four futures for an independent Scotland" special report, looking at the choices a newly independent Scotland could make AS DUSK falls, Grangemouth starts to glow. Cloaked in clouds of steam and lit by flares like giant candles, Scotland's biggest oil refinery has a strange beauty. Situated roughly halfway between...

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Forget the dentist's drill, use lasers to heal teeth

Open wide, this won't hurt a bit. That might actually be true if the dentist's drill is replaced by a promising low-powered laser that can prompt stem cells to make damaged hard tissue in teeth grow back. Such minimally invasive treatment could one day offer an easy way to repair or regrow our pearly whites.When a tooth is chipped or damaged, dentists replace it with ceramic or some other inert material, but these deteriorate over time.To find something...

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