19 October 2019 | New Scientist | 3This week’s issue
On the cover
42 Coping with uncertainty
A guide to building resilience
when your future hangs in
the balance38 Information wars How you
became the fake-news front line15 Action, no reaction
‘Helical engine’ claimed
to break laws of physics17 Cold-blooded mammals
The curious lifestyles of
our ancient ancestors14 Eternal wormholes
Space portals that last
as long as the universe34 Living in peace with elephants
17 Was life made of urea?
8 UK moon rover has legs
10 The art of surreal headlinesNews
Views
Features
8 Moon walker UK rover
will have legs, not wheels9 Cannabis addiction
Can CBD pills help?16 Changing the brain
Experiencing depression
may reduce white matter23 Comment
The world needs climate
protests, says Adam Vaughan24 The columnist
Annalee Newitz on the dirty,
biological future of technology26 Letters
We are still aware of some
doubts on consciousness31 Aperture
From jet suits to giant moons,
this was New Scientist Live 201928 Culture
A deep dive into the facts
behind epic novel Moby-Dick30 Culture columnist
Jacob Aron on the blurry boundary
between gaming and gambling51 Stargazing from home
Hop from star to star52 Puzzles
A crossword, a matchstick
puzzle and a quick quiz53 Feedback
Strange maths and tangerine
dreams: the week in weird54 Almost the last word
Shopping green and fluorescent
blue ink: readers respond56 The Q&A
Anu Ojha reveals the solar
system’s coolest moons34 Living with elephants
Deforestation is forcing
elephants into conflict with
us. How can we live together?38 The information wars
How you became the
new battlefield in the
era of fake news42 Coping with uncertainty
Building resilience to the
agony of waiting for events
to unfoldThe back pages
Vol 244 No 3252
Cover image: Francesco CiccolellaMANY thanks to everyone who
joined us for another four-day
spectacular at New Scientist Live
last weekend. As ever, the exhibits
on the show floor were immense,
but for me, the best bit is meeting
our readers – and seeing the talks.
Some of the highlights are
showcased on pages 8-10 and 31-33.
To hear scientists describe their
latest work – whether building
liquid xenon detectors for dark
matter, or using hot water to drill
through the Antarctic ice sheet – is
a thrill and a huge privilege.
Rock-star palaeoanthropologist
Lee Berger was the standout forme. His story of discovering
Homo naledi at the bottom of a
suffocatingly narrow shaft in a
cave in South Africa is one he tells
brilliantly and with sparkling
humour (see page 9). But every
talk I went to inspired me.
After hearing Joe Pecorelli at the
Zoological Society of London talk
about the citizen science behind
the return of eels and seahorses
to the Thames, I feel so differently
about the murky river that I walk
past most days – for all that its
crabs are now stuffed full of
microplastics (see page 8).
We know that not all of you –our Australian and US readers for
example – are able to make it to a
show in London . We are working
on this, but in the meantime, we
did film all the stages this year,
and we will put the talks online
for subscribers as soon as we can.
For those of you within striking
distance of London, please put
15-18 October next year into
your diaries. We’ll be doing it all
again – just with barrel-loads
more new science. Emily WilsonEditor’s note
ALEXANDER SAFONOV/GETTY IMAGES28 The reality behind Moby-Dick