Ice sheets of West Antarctica are warming fast

THE ice sheets of West Antarctica are warming much faster than we thought, suggesting swathes of it could melt and send global sea levels soaring. Climatologists have struggled to work out whether Antarctica is warming, and how quickly, because it has few weather stations...

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In-depth 2012: The best long reads of the year

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year" Dig deeper, look closer and think harder – these are the goals of New Scientist's in-depth articles. Each one is perfect for saving in your favourite read-it-later...

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2012 review: The year in health science

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year" The first half of 2012 will be remembered for the saga over whether or not to publish controversial research involving versions of the H5N1 bird flu virus engineered to spread...

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Today on New Scientist: 28 December 2012

Best videos of 2012: Rare view of Challenger tragedy Watch a rare amateur video of the Challenger explosion, our most-viewed video of the year Strong jet stream super-charged US Christmas storms Record snowfall and dozens of tornadoes snarled holiday travel as a powerful winter storm plowed across much of the US, while rainstorms battered the UK 2012 review: The year in life science The year's...

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Strong jet stream super-charged US Christmas storms

The weather outside was truly frightful across much of the US and UK this holiday season. In the US, a powerful winter storm whipped up heavy snow, icy winds and a record number of tornadoes in late December, causing at least 15 deaths. ...

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Photo puzzle: Can you make the connection?

Correctly match up 16 pairs of science-inspired images and enter a draw to win a state-of-the-art Olympus E-PL5 digital cameraMANY of the most fascinating sights in the universe are not evident to the naked eye. Happily, cutting-edge imaging - whether done with a microscope, telescope, MRI scanner or just a camera lens - means these sights are now ours for the seeing.Can you link up 16 intriguing...

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Three gods: The hardest logic puzzle ever

* Required fields * First name * Last name * Country * Email address * Password Password must contain only letters and numbers, and be at least 8 characters * Confirm password...

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New Scientist 2012 holiday quiz

Continue reading page |1 |2 THIS was the year we held our breath in almost unbearable anticipation while we waited to see whether physicists at the Large Hadron Collider would finally get a clear view of the Higgs boson, so tantalisingly hinted at last December. Going a bit blue, we held on through March when one of the...

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New Scientist 2012 holiday quiz

Continue reading page |1 |2 THIS was the year we held our breath in almost unbearable anticipation while we waited to see whether physicists at the Large Hadron Collider would finally get a clear view of the Higgs boson, so tantalisingly hinted at last December. Going a bit blue, we held on through March when one of the...

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Today on New Scientist: 21 December 2012

Cadaver stem cells offer new hope of life after death Stem cells can be extracted from bone marrow five days after death to be used in life-saving treatmentsApple's patents under fire at US patent office The tech firm is skating on thin ice with some of the patents that won it a $1 billion settlement against SamsungHimalayan dam-building threatens endemic species The world's highest mountains...

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Himalayan dam-building threatens endemic species

The Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range, may soon hold another record: it could become home to the greatest density of dams in the world. More than a thousand are either already operating, under construction or being planned in northern India, Nepal and Bhutan. Besides providing clean energy, they could...

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Data show how US gun control will cut shooting deaths

It is tragic that it took the deaths of 20 children, but it seems that the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown has finally shifted the debate about guns and violence in the US. In focusing on Newtown, Connecticut,...

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Cassini captures spectacle in Saturn's shadow

Flora Graham, deputy editor, newscientist.com(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)Like a Christmas bauble hanging in the night, this view ofa backlit Saturn shines in the darkness. The image was taken during a rare chancefor NASA'sCassini spacecraft to observe the planet's rings while in Saturn's shadow. Conveniently,Saturn blocks the sun and the rings are illuminated from behind. As well as providing...

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Gaming chair mimics a full-motion simulator

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent(Image: Greg Pease/Getty)Multi-million-dollar full-motion flight simulators give trainee pilots a good approximation of the ups and downs of real flight, but the powerful hydraulic rams they are mounted on make them far too big, expensive and dangerous for the home. Gamers should take heart, though: a novel kind of gaming chair called a haptic seat might...

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Multidimensional black holes get electric when flexed

Bending a black hole can juice it up. In extra dimensions, a black hole behaves like a fluid and a solid at the same time, and flexing the solid form may generate an electric field. Although these effects exist only in the theoretical realm, the underlying...

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab. ...

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab. ...

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Satellite upgrade should let planes slash emissions

A CONSTELLATION of next-generation communications satellites has a surprise in store for the environment. When Iridium Communications begins launching replacement orbiters in 2015, it will do much more than upgrade its satphone services. Piggybacking on the satellites will be a set of transmitters that could revolutionise...

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Higgs boson having an identity crisis

The Higgs boson is sending mixed signals: its mass seems to vary depending on how it is measured. What's more, oddities in the way it decays into other particles, first noticed when the team at the Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of a new boson in July, do not seem to be going away. ...

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Out-of-season's greetings from the Arctic frost flowers

Joanna Carver, reporter(Image: Matthias Wietz/IGERT/NSF)Season's regards from an icy meadow in the Arctic, but it's no winter wonderland and please don't dash out into it. These frost flowers generally form in spring, and only on thin ice, so you'd quickly find yourself in freezing water in a sparsely populated area.Frost flowers form in calm conditions when the atmosphere is much colder than the...

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