COSMOS magazine | The science of everything

home subscribe Shop teachers newsletter about us contact advertise
news features opinion fiction reviews media room	Online news Wednesday, 10 February 2010 Life-shortening telomere gene discovered Some people carry a genetic variant responsible for short telomeres - caps at the end of DNA that control ageing - and it could shave three or four years off their life, according to a new study. read more Climate change impact of soil underestimated Finnish researchers called for a revision of climate change estimates after their findings showed emissions from soil would be up to 50% higher than previously thought. read more Other news Public awareness of quitting is distorted Older galaxies more peculiar, census shows Drink beer for your bones New target for male contraceptive Solar flares back, but oddly small Darwin out of Africa 45,000 years ago View all news COSMOS magazine: current issue On sale in newsstands now! COSMIC ROULETTE Was Charles Darwin the genius behind the great revolution in science, or did he merely state the obvious? Richard Conniff reads between the lines. Also in this issue: THE END OF EVOLUTION - The forces that drive evolution are disappearing, says Steve Jones, who argues that we are undergoing a 'grand averaging', totally new in history. Also in this issue: SNOWBALL EARTH - 800 million years ago, a climate lurch left Earth entombed in ice and almost devoid of life. But could it have been the catalyst for complex life? Subscribe now to Cosmos magazine! View the full contents Online features World's helium supply running low by Calla Cofield \| Helium is the lifeblood of large particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider. As the world's supply dwindles, physicists must take steps to preserve this commodity or learn to live without it. read more Innovation has climate change in hand by Ziggy Switkowski \| A hundred years brings significant technological progress. Trying to find a solution today to the predicted climate catastrophes of 2100 may be mere vanity. read more Read more features Selected COSMOS magazine features Eight spin-offs from space by Heather Catchpole \| Space is a complicated and expensive place to get to. That's why the technology the space program produces is so spectacular. read more Learning to forget by Emma Young \| Painful memories that cause distress could soon be a thing of the past. Recent studies suggest memories can be manipulated, edited - and even deleted. read more Read more features Fiction Proof of Life Running an artificial intelligence inside your head is all fun and games until someone loses an I. read more Under The Shouting Sky Saturn hung overhead, a great pastel yellow ball. It took a special kind of imagination to see the planet for what it really was. read more Read more fiction Reviews Moon This sci-fi thriller is centred on the daily life of Sam Bell, hired by Lunar Industries to manage the largely automated helium-3 extraction facility on the surface, to power fusion reactors back on Earth. read more We Need to Talk About Kelvin: What Everyday Things Tell Us About The Universe How do you know our universe is not the only one? How does the fact that teacups break but never unbreak tell us that the universe must have expanded from a Big Bang? read more Read more reviews	COSMOS newsletter! Sign up to the COSMOS newsletter Enter your email address Receive regular updates highlighting the latest in science from COSMOS. Unscientific poll Should the U.S. have abandoned plans to return to the Moon?: Yes. There are more important things to spend money on. Maybe. The timing was wrong but the plan should be resurrected in the future. No. This is a step backwards for humanity. It doesn't matter. The first colony should be on Mars.

COSMIC ROULETTE

COSMOS newsletter!

Unscientific poll