1 February 2020 | New Scientist | 3
8 Wuhan coronavirus As the virus spreads, Chinese authorities are
taking unprecedented action, including building a new hospital
STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
News
34 Features
“ For all our efforts to pin
it down, reality just keeps
on getting bigger and
more bewildering”
On the
cover
8 Wuhan coronavirus
How bad is it likely to get?
44 Long-lost ancestors
The ancient microbes shaking
up the tree of life
9 Fusion in nine months
UK prepares for first major
test in decades
Health
Check
Vol 245 No 3267
Cover image: Alexey Boldin/Shutterstock
34 What is reality?
The more we look at it,
the less real it seems
20 Getting Brexit done
The science issues still
to be solved
19 Superluminous supernova 18 Oldest ever fungi 31 Raised with chimps
19 Perfect coffee (according to maths)
This week’s issue
News
Views
Features
10 Organ engineering
The race to make pig organs
work for human transplants
14 Daredevil hominins
Did Neanderthals climb up
an active volcano?
16 Genome invasion
We’ve caught a virus in the act
of invading an animal genome
for the first time
23 Comment
It’s too late to ban face
recognition, says Donna Lu
24 The columnist
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
on the Milky Way
26 Letters
A unit for personal
environmental impact
28 Aperture
Art that recreates the beauty
of precipitation
31 Culture
The man who was raised
alongside chimps
51 Science of cooking
Preserve fish, meat and egg yolks
52 Puzzles
Quick crossword, an elevator
question and the quiz
53 Feedback
Deadly drop bears and a pooch
podcast: the week in weird
54 Almost the last word
Cats, fish and water, and brain
calories: readers respond
56 The Q&A
Julie Sze on social and
environmental justice
34 What is reality?
Tackling the greatest intellectual
challenge there is: the search
for the meaning of everything
44 Long-lost ancestors
A strange family of ancient
microbes may change the very
tree of life – and our place in it
The back pages
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