Today on New Scientist: 15 September 2011

Contagion doesn't skimp on science

Steven Soderbergh's star-studded film about a deadly global virus portrays some plausible science.

Did research funding lead to the anthrax attacks?

In American Anthrax, Jeanne Guillemin examines the climate of fear in US research labs that may have caused home-grown bioterrorism

Born to be Viral: Kung-fu mantis thumb-wrestles human

Watch a praying mantis demonstrate its threat response when confronted by a human thumb

Advanced birds lived alongside 'hairy' dinosaurs

A trove of dinosaur and bird feathers preserved in amber offer a snapshot of feathered life 79 million years ago

Inflatable turbine lights up and can move with the wind

Inflatable wind turbine is the latest invention from the creator of the Segway scooter

Zoologger: Dozy hamsters reverse the ageing process

Anyone who has kept them as a pet knows that hamsters don't live long. But they can repair some of the ravages of time

Emergency plan to stop Europe's tuberculosis crisis

The World Health Organization has launched an emergency action plan to prevent the unchecked spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis around Europe

Why you are identifiable after just a few steps

Everybody's walk is different, something that a computer algorithm can pick up with 99.8 per cent accuracy

Creating life-like cells from metal

Watch how bubbles made of metal can mimic biological cells

Artificial cells made to reproduce thanks to DNA

Add the right kind of chemical cocktail to fatty water and it self-assembles into reproducing cells

NASA to build most powerful rocket in history

NASA has finally decided on a new way to take humans into space, but the vehicle won't fly until 2017 at the earliest

Map reveals greening of Greenland

The Times Atlas has made it official: Greenland's ice loss is permanent, and they have had to re-draw it in their latest edition

SpongeBob drains attention, but doesn't harm brains

Zany cartoons that demand children's full attention might leave them cognitively exhausted - but that does not mean they are harmful

Darwin's robots: Survival of the fittest digital brain

A holistic, evolutionary approach means that robots could learn to design themselves

Cancer's cravings could be its undoing

A radical idea is challenging a decades-old assumption about how cancer gets its food. If correct, it could open up a host of new ways to fight the disease

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