Herbal Viagra actually contains the real thing

IF IT looks too good to be true, it probably is. Several "herbal remedies" for erectile dysfunction sold online actually contain the active ingredient from Viagra. Michael Lamb at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and colleagues purchased 10...

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Smartphone projector breathes life into storybooks

Hal Hodson, technology reporter!--By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C found at https://accounts.brightcove.com/en/terms-and-conditions/. -->!-- This script tag will cause the Brightcove Players defined above it to be created as soonas the line is read by the browser. If you wish to have the player instantiated only afterthe rest of the HTML is processed and the...

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Leap Motion unveils contents of its own app store

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent(Image: Leap Motion)The Next Big Thing now has the next big app store. The Leap, the forthcoming 3D gestural control device that could by all accounts replace the mouse, the joystick and even the keyboard, will launch on 13 May alongside a fully stocked app store called Airspace. The $80 gadget's maker, Leap Motion of San Francisco, numbers at least two...

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US research to be put online for free

YOU paid for it, so you should be able to see it. On Sunday the US government said that all federally funded research results must be available for free online. The UK made a similar decision last year. Most research papers are behind paywalls. Now all...

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China takes steps to clean up 'cancer villages'

The Chinese government has acknowledged the existence of "cancer villages": areas where rates of cancer are unusually high, probably because of industrial and agricultural contamination of drinking and irrigation water. The reference...

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Armband adds a twitch to gesture control

And you thought depth-sensing cameras were cool: well, now there's a gesture control device that looks like a sweatband. It lets you control everything from computers to flying drones just by moving the muscles in your forearm. ...

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New blood test finds elusive fetal gene problem

A NEW non-invasive blood test for pregnant women could make it easier to catch abnormalities before their child is born. Human cells should have two copies of each chromosome but sometimes the division is uneven. Existing tests count the fragments of placental...

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Amazon to open market in second-hand MP3s and e-books

A new market for second-hand digital downloads could let us hold virtual yard sales of our ever-growing piles of intangible possessions WHY buy second-hand? For physical goods, the appeal is in the price – you don't mind the creases in a book or rust spots on a car if it's a bargain. Although digital objects...

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First MRI movies capture fetal brain connecting up

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV!--By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and Cfound at https://accounts.brightcove.com/en/terms-and-conditions/. -->It's the sequel to fertilisation:the brains of unborn babies have now been imaged in action, showing how connections form. This fMRI movie, produced by Moriah Thomason from Wayne State University in Detroit,...

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Spinning camera gives a ball's-eye view of the game

Hal Hodson, technology reporterThe drama of that final pass is about to get a whole lot closer. A video camera built into the side of an football would normally just provide a dizzying swirl of images as the ball spirals through the air, but computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan, have found a way...

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Fertiliser makes another reason to eat less meat

IT'S not a good time to be a meat lover. As the horsemeat scandal spreads across Europe, a new report blames livestock for farms' excessive fertiliser use. Last week, Europol, the pan-European police force, announced it would investigate how cheap horsemeat...

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Insert real news events into your mobile game

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent(Image: MultiPlay.io)Seen it in the news? Now play it: a mobile-game programming system allows 3D depictions of news events to be introduced into the action. It's been developed by MultiPlay.io, a British start-up that says the technology could make gameplay more current and provide new ways for designers and coders to make cash - perhaps selling "news injection"...

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The fish with a rainbow eye

Michael Marshall, environment reporter(Image: Randall Benton/The Sacramento Bee)These eyes are positively spectral. They belong to a Caribbean trumpetfish, and their many colours are created by the refraction of light.Rays of light bend as they pass in and out of the fish's eyes, and different colours of light bend different amounts. As a result, what was previously white light splinters into bands...

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False memories prime immune system for future attacks

IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon. When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts...

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False memories prime immune system for future attacks

IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon. When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts...

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Russian meteor will teach us about future bigger hits

You wait years for a space rock and then two come along at once. Just hours before an asteroid is due to almost graze Earth, a meteor has exploded over the Russian region of Chelyabinsk, injuring hundreds of people and damaging nearby buildings. ...

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How Facebook makes breaking up hard to do

Paul Marks, senior technology reporter(Image: Andy Kingsbury/Corbis)I am not particularly prone to earbugs, but Jimmy Ruffin's emotive Motown classic What Becomes of the Brokenhearted began playing in my mind when I came across this intriguingly titled research paper last week: "Design for forgetting: Disposing of digital possessions after a breakup".Yes, I know it’s Valentine’s Day, and love is...

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Culling urban foxes just doesn't work

Continue reading page |1 |2 Rare cases of foxes biting children cause uproar, but culling won't cut numbers – it is our behaviour that needs addressing, says an ecologist In the UK, whenever wildlife are seen to be posing a problem, it goes without saying that the culprits are branded as overabundant – be...

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Robotic tormenter depresses lab rats

Hal Hodson, technology reporter(Image: Chris Nash/iamchrisphotography/Getty)Lab rats have a new companion, but it's not friendly. Researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, have developed a robotic rat called WR-3 whose job is to induce stress and depression in lab animals, creating models of psychological conditions on which new drugs can be tested. Animal are used throughout medicine...

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Can the internet revive US democracy?

Jim Giles, consultantTech-savvy campaigns get mixed results, as the Arab Spring shows (Image: William Dupuy/Picturetank)Gavin Newsom's Citizenville shows that technology can empower people, but the book fails to explore deep-rooted problems within the democratic processTHERE'S a lot of crime in Oakland, California. But until a few years ago, citizens had little way of assessing the scale of the...

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