Feedback: Trial by water

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more AS THE nights draw in in the northern hemisphere, we return to the subject of unconventional sunscreen. At the height of the London summer we mentioned claims by the Colorado company Osmosis that it had produced a drinkable sun screen (5 July). The "Harmonized H2O UV Neutralizer" is now less prominent on its website, but digging suggests...

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Smoke without fire: What's the truth on e-cigarettes?

Scroll down to download this guide to the major facts and figures about e-cigarettes They've been called safe, dangerous, a way to quit smoking – and a way to start. New Scientist sifts through the evidence about e-cigarettes THE juice bar is clean and bright with a nice-looking selection of drinks and cakes – just like a regular London cafe, but with one big difference: the kind of juice that's on offer.This is one of thousands of small outlets...

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White noise for your nose cancels pungent aromas

By combining compounds in just the right mixture, researchers have worked out how to produce the olfactory equivalent of white noise HAS someone burned the toast and stunk out the kitchen again? Fire up the smell canceller and sniff freely. That's the proposal from two researchers who are applying the principle behind noise cancelling headphones to noses.Aural and visual signals are easy to manipulate because they are both based on waves, which can...

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Left or right-wing? Brain's disgust response tells all

The way your brain reacts to a single disgusting image can be used to predict whether you lean to the left or the right politically.A number of studies have probed the emotions of people along the political spectrum, and found that disgust in particular is tightly linked to political orientation. People who are highly sensitive to disgusting images – of bodily waste, gore or animal remains – are more likely to sit on the political right and show...

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Spoiler-free guide to the science of Interstellar

Continue reading page |1|2 Video: How Interstellar's black hole was created As Christopher Nolan's epic new film opens on an Earth of the near future, it's not quite apocalypse now, but it will be soon. Crops are failing all over the planet. Humanity's final generation has already been born. We've got to get off the planet. And not just off to a nice moon in our solar system: we've got to go Interstellar.This is going to require some serious science.The...

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Today on New Scientist

TTIP: The science of the US-European trade megadeal It will be the biggest trade deal the world has ever seen – and that means you'll see changes in health, the environment and even happinessReading on screens is different – does it matter? We're beginning to understand how digital devices affect literacy – but don't assume that paper is always better than screensWhy bird divorces are good news for the females When bird pairs break up females often...

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Reading on screens is different – does it matter?

We're beginning to understand how digital devices affect literacy – but don't assume that paper is always better than screens CAN gadgets help to educate young people? Many would say yes: digital literacy is seen as key to a modern upbringing, and screens are being introduced at ever earlier ages. But to others, they're potentially harmful distractions. There are schools that frown on kids toting tablets and universities that ban laptops from lecture...

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Why bird divorces are good news for the females

AS THE song would have it, birds, bees and even educated fleas fall in love. For some birds, however, the love turns sour – they get divorced.Many birds may seem like model parents, with males and females investing more equally in caring for their young than the average mammal. While 85 per cent of bird species are socially monogamous – they form pair bonds and share the workload – divorce is common, occurring in 92 per cent of these species, including...

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Heart ops shrink thanks to surgeon in your vein

LAST year, a tiny heart surgeon entered the neck of a pig, slipped down its jugular vein and into its still-beating heart.With the pig's heart pumping, the device cut a small hole in the wall between the two upper chambers before being removed.The successful test, which mimicked a procedure to fix a heart defect in children, showed that the device could one day be used on a range of operations, including those that currently require cutting open...

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Gold origami exerts strange power over light

SHEETS of gold one nano-particle thick have been folded into tiny origami. Dubbed plasmene, the material has some of the weirdest optical properties around. It could someday enable things like invisibility cloaks and super-efficient solar cells.Plasmonic materials, such as gold and silver, capture light and transmit it along their surfaces as waves of electrons called plasmons. They can squeeze light into spaces smaller than the laws of physics normally...

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Supernova shock waves create glowing arcs across sky

Ghostly arcs that haunt the sky may come from an expanding shock-wave shell that is pressing in on our solar system.Although they are invisible at optical wavelengths, looking at the sky in radio waves, X-rays or gamma rays turns up giant streaks across the heavens. Dubbed "radio loops", they have perplexed astronomers since their discovery in the 1950s.Previous explanations included the idea that these glowing filaments are the leftover ripples...

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Goodbye, paper: What we miss when we read on screen

(Image: Richard Wilkinson) Digital technology is transforming the way we read and write. Is it changing our minds too – and if so, for better or worse? WE READ more than ever – three times as much as we did in 1980, according to one study. But we're reading differently. Take a look around a train carriage full of commuters nowadays and you'll probably see more people perusing text on phones and tablets than in newspapers and books.We're writing differently,...

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Computers are learning to see the world like we do

It is surprisingly difficult to build computers that can recognise the many different objects we see every day, but they are getting better all the time WHAT animal is in the picture above? Glance at the page, wheels in the brain spin: yeah, that's a bird. The response comes so fast that you barely notice the processing behind it.If only machines found it that easy. Object recognition is surprisingly tricky for computers. Online web comic xkcd recently...

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Brain decoder can eavesdrop on your inner voice

As you read this, your neurons are firing – that brain activity can now be decoded to reveal the silent words in your head TALKING to yourself used to be a strictly private pastime. That's no longer the case – researchers have eavesdropped on our internal monologue for the first time. The achievement is a step towards helping people who cannot physically speak communicate with the outside world."If you're reading text in a newspaper or a book, you...

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Today on New Scientist

Seabed feeding frenzy proves dead jellyfish get eaten Time-lapse imagery of scavengers tucking in proves that dead jellyfish aren't unpalatable after all, so can return nutrients to the sea's food websComputer with human-like learning will program itself The Neural Turing Machine will combine the best of number-crunching with the human-like adaptability of neural networks – so it can invent its own programsCargo rocket explosion is a blow for commercial...

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Seabed feeding frenzy proves dead jellyfish get eaten

Video: Feeding frenzy proves dead jellyfish do get eaten Deep in the North Sea off Norway, a jelly-feast is under way – and it's the last thing researchers expected to find.Daniel Jones of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK, and his colleagues lowered dead jellyfish down to the seabed on a platter fitted with a time-lapse camera. Previous observations of large blooms of jellyfish dying suggested that the creatures are so unpalatable...

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Computer with human-like learning will program itself

The Neural Turing Machine will combine the best of number-crunching with the human-like adaptability of neural networks – so it can invent its own programs YOUR smartphone is amazing, but ask it to do something it doesn't have an app for and it just sits there. Without programmers to write apps, computers are useless.That could soon change. DeepMind Technologies, a London-based artificial-intelligence firm acquired by Google this year, has revealed...

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Cargo rocket explosion is a blow for commercial space

Video: Orbital's Antares rocket explodes on launch A commercial rocket flying cargo to the International Space Station exploded just 14 seconds after lift-off last night, creating a spectacular fireball and shockwave as the fully fuelled rocket crashed back down onto its launch pad.No one was hurt when the uncrewed spacecraft was destroyed, but the loss will dent attempts by the spacecraft's builder, Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia,...

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Cellular alchemy turns skin cells into brain cells

Move over stem cells. A different kind of cellular alchemy is allowing cells to be converted directly into other tissues to treat disease or mend injuries.Stem cells have long been touted as the future of regenerative medicine as they can multiply indefinitely and be turned into many different cell types. Ideally, this would take a personal approach – a patient's own cells would be converted into whatever type of cell is required to fix their injury...

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Trap cells in sound to create strong cartilage

Video: Ultrasound suspends cells in bioreactor Using sound to suspend cells could be key to growing strong cartilage to repair knee damage, says the team that has developed a device to continuously hold growing cells in a sound wave.When new tissues or body parts are required, they are usually created by covering a scaffold outlining the organ's natural structure with the recipient's cells. But the scaffold can degrade over time, weakening the structure...

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What one Amazonian tribe teaches us

Book information Upriver: The turbulent life and times of an Amazonian people by Michael F. BrownPublished by: Harvard University PressPrice: $29.95/£22.95Awajún wives use the threat of suicide to make men behave better (Image: Victor Rojas) From female suicide to the nature of being civilised, probing tribal life in the 21st century needs an unflinching, critical eye ON 26 January 1987, Time magazine ran an article in which US presidential candidate...

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The comeback cubs: The great sea otter invasion

After being nearly wiped out a century ago, the sea otter population in Canada is booming. But not everyone is glad to welcome them back IT'S shortly after dawn on Canada's west coast. We're standing on a rocky islet, and below us are the animals we have come to watch: about 15 sea otters are grooming, snacking and snoozing in the ocean. Then four fishing skiffs zoom by and the otters scatter.I'm here with marine ecologist Erin Rechsteiner, who has...

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