Security savvy services beat online cyber spies

Popular chat service WhatsApp has built end-to-end encryption into the latest Android version of its app. It's part of a growing trend to toughen up web security THE internet is wising up. Companies and consumers are turning to encryption to boost levels of privacy and security on the web.On Tuesday, WhatsApp, the world's most popular mobile chat service, announced that it has built end-to-end encryption into the latest Android version of its app....

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Us vs universe: Seeing smaller than the limit of light

(Image: Stefan W Hell/Division of Optical Nanoscopy/German Cancer Research Center) Stefan Hell's microscope sees things that light waves should be too clumsy to reveal – and it won him this year's chemistry Nobel TALK about microscopes and you bump up against the diffraction limit. Traditional microscopes cannot see objects smaller than about half the wavelength of light, because of how light bends and scatters at the edges of lenses. The limit equates...

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Total white out: Snowshoe hares vs global warming

(Image: Norbert Rosing /National Geographic Creative) Removing their white winter coat once kept snowshoe hares hidden in spring, but as the snows melt earlier, they are increasingly exposed. Can they fight back? IT IS midsummer in Montana. Traipsing through the lush, dewy forest undergrowth, the morning mist is lifting and shafts of orange sunlight beam through the trees. To nature's soundtrack of a gurgling stream and birdsong, we check for quarry...

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Radar net protects tigers and keeps them neighbourly

THE tigers in India's Panna National Park will soon live in a forest that watches out for them. A wireless network of low-power radars is being developed to track everything that moves in or out of the forest. This helps keep the tigers safe from poachers, and villagers' cattle safe from the big cats.Built by Anish Arora at Ohio State University in Columbus, the work was originally designed as a way for the US government to monitor the flow of people...

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Challenges for US-Iran nuclear talks

IRAN may be on the brink of a historic deal. The country is entering the final stage of nuclear negotiations with the US and five other countries.In 2002, Iran began escalating its uranium enrichment efforts, a necessary process for operating nuclear power plants, but also a step towards the production of nuclear warheads. Since then, sanctions and talks – between Iran, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China – have built to a 24 November...

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Gay gene discovery has good and bad implications

The finding that male homosexuality is has a strong genetic component should be a boon for gay rights – but it could backfire FOR gay rights activists, it's a dilemma. Does it help or hinder their cause if science shows that homosexuality is partly or largely biologically determined, rather than a lifestyle choice?On the one hand, if sexual orientation is something people are born with, and cannot change even if they want to – akin to skin colour...

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What it's like to have Parkinson's for 15 minutes

Video: Body illusion lets you experience Parkinson's I'm at a close friend's wedding, waiting to give a speech. Public speaking always makes me anxious, but today it's worse than usual: my hand is shaking noticeably and I can't seem to make it stop. The loss of control is unnerving.When I try to speak to a neighbour, my voice comes out in a whisper, even though it seems to take more effort. Soon, my upper arm feels tired. I tell myself I just need...

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Green fund pledges at G20 may herald climate consensus

Two weeks in a row. Last week the US and China agreed to cut their emissions. This week the world's big economies have thrown their weight behind the Green Climate Fund – another shot in the arm for a world consensus on climate change action.The fund is aimed at helping developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. It is seen as essential for getting such countries behind any agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris next...

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Seastar ripper prime suspect pinned down

Guilty as charged? A mysterious epidemic ravaging sea stars on North America's Pacific coast has had scientists scratching their heads over the cause. Now they have a prime suspect. The discovery is the first step in helping researchers learn what triggered the outbreak, and whether it is likely to happen again.When sea stars began dying in great numbers last year, all the way from Mexico to Alaska, some researchers called it the biggest marine disease...

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World War R: Rise of the killer robots

(Image: Renaud Vigourt) When robots fight in place of soldiers, will wars have fewer casualties? Or will the world slide into non-stop conflict? QANDI AGHA used to be a cashier in Afghanistan's Ministry of Culture. But he claims that in 2012 he was arrested by an elite US Special Forces unit and tortured for six and a half weeks. He was held under water until he felt like he was dying, says Joanne Mariner, an expert in humanitarian law for Amnesty...

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Are we ready for quantum biology?

Book information Life on the Edge: The coming of age of quantum biology by Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFaddenPublished by: Bantam PressPrice: £20Stomata: does entanglement play a part in plant biology? (Image: Power And Syred/Science Photo Library) In Life on the Edge, Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden argue quantum effects are decisive in biology – but this challenging idea needs more proof FOR 15 years, theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili...

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Optical trickery brings Rothko's paintings back to life

(Image: 2014 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Peter Vanderwarker, © President and Fellows of Harvard College) Bespoke lighting effects are returning the original colours to five faded masterpieces by artist Mark Rothko at Harvard Art Museums LIGHT and art have an uneasy relationship. Good lighting makes art come alive, but too much light can damage or destroy pigments, degrading vital colours.Harvard...

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Dark matter could be seen in GPS time glitches

GPS has a new job. It does a great job of telling us our location, but the network of hyper-accurate clocks in space could get a fix on something far more elusive: dark matter.Dark matter makes up 80 per cent of the universe's matter but scarcely interacts with ordinary matter. A novel particle is the most popular candidate, but Andrei Derevianko at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Maxim Pospelov at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario,...

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Surveillance box alerts you to break-in noise at home

If a window breaks in your home while you are out, will anyone hear it? A sensor that analyses the ambient noise in your house promises to provide a watchful ear.Developed by Form Devices in Malmö, Sweden, the internet-connected device, called Point, looks like a wall-mounted smoke alarm but packs an acoustic sensor that measures background noise."We live in apartments and don't need full-blown security systems. The only real options were cameras...

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Today on New Scientist

Huge twin study homes in on 'gay genes' The biggest study of its kind links gay men's orientation with two regions of the genome picked out previously – suggesting that being gay has some genetic basisPhilae's hop, skip and jump across comet 67P Check out this image of Philae's journey over comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as captured by the orbiting Rosetta spacecraftShould we all get out of fossil fuels now? UN head Ban Ki-moon has urged divestment...

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14 myths and maybes about burning fat

(Image: Donald Weber/VII) There's no end of pop wisdom about why we gain or lose weight, from "fast" metabolisms to what time of day you eat. Here's what science really says Skinny people have higher metabolisms Generally, the opposite is true: the larger you are, the more calories you need to burn each day just to keep your body going. But there may be some exceptions. Mutations in a gene called KRS2 , which reduce the ability of cells to metabolise...

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Habitable exomoons born in cosmic collisions

From Endor in Star Wars to Pandora in Avatar, habitable moons are science fiction staples. Trouble is, they appear hard to make in the real world. But hit-and-run accidents involving planets could create moons able to hold on to an atmosphere.Previous studies suggested that a world must be at least 0.2 times Earth's mass to sustain an atmosphere. If moons form out of the dust disc surrounding a planet left over from the planet's formation, then it...

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Frigid matter powers first quantum circuits

Move over, electrons – circuits could one day be powered by frigid quantum matter.Ultra-cold clouds of atoms called Bose-Einstein condensates act as a single quantum object, and the goal has been to build "atomtronic" circuits with them. But the condensate's delicate quantum state can easily fall apart.Now Changhyun Ryu and Malcolm Boshier of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have found a way to do it. Their circuits are built from...

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Today on New Scientist

Enter the kaleidoscopic world of cancer drug crystals Celebrating the International Year of Crystallography, an exhibition in London reveals the beauty of crystal structuresPhilae drills comet, but may not survive the night Time is running out to get crucial comet data back from ESA's Philae lander as its solar panels are not getting enough sun to charge the batteriesZoologger: Stingless suicidal bees bite until they die Who needs a sting when you...

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Enter the kaleidoscopic world of cancer drug crystals

(Image: ©Max Alexander) It looks like a kaleidoscope pattern, but this is an image of the fast-forming crystals of a cancer drug. It was created using X-ray crystallography, a technique essential for developing medication.Drugs can crystallise in many different forms depending on the conditions in which they are made. Each crystalline arrangement can have different biological and physical properties, affecting shelf life or the way the body absorbs...

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Philae drills comet, but may not survive the night

The Philae spacecraft has attempted to drill into the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, but may not have enough battery left to beam the results back to Earth. The European Space Agency's probe, which made its historic landing on the comet on Wednesday, 12 November, has not moved from its landing spot and so its solar panels are not getting enough sunlight.Mission managers at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, made...

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Zoologger: Stingless suicidal bees bite until they die

Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world Species: Trigona hyalinata, a stingless beeHabitat: Across the tropics of Brazil, Bolivia and ParaguayYou're a bee without a sting whose home is under attack. What can you do to drive off the enemy? Bite, and never let go.Meet Trigona hyalinata, an aggressive, 10-toothed, highly suicidal bee. Its stinger is vestigial and has...

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Feedback: Very traditional error messages

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more FEEDBACK was mildly puzzled that online and email error messages failed to feature among the 10 milestone achievements of our species (25 October). This prompted a colleague to report how the grand traditions of the analogue equivalent are being maintained and upheld.The colleague emailed a document to members of the UK's House of Lords....

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