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Editor's picks

Earth

Dump the pump: When oil will lose its lustre

Life

The incredible flying squid

Health

Change your stomach, change your brain

Technology

Reality respray: The hidden digital world uncloaked

Table of contents

News

Antiviral drug backed for use in HIV prevention

The drug Truvada could soon be available to prevent people from catching HIV, following recommended approval by US health experts

The ancient American bones at centre of two lawsuits

Teleportation record heralds secure global network

Earth

1.3 billion people rely on forests to survive

60 Seconds

America’s report card science skills improving

Warm winters may fuel Chikungunya outbreak in New York

Americans would pay more for green energy

Health

Trials highlight worrying flaws in psychiatry ‘bible’

Egypt: Arab Spring could be wasted in youthful nations

Life

Biological clock began ticking 2.5 billion years ago

Earth

Monitoring tides could predict major quakes

Health

Brain-controlled arm could beat paralysis

‘Solar panel’ eye implant promises sight without wires

Technology

Online friendships light up shadow social networks

Environment

Sumatran orang-utans delay puberty to build up strength

Lightning gong could reveal solar system history

Sun too sluggish to act as a cosmic Concorde

Health

Say what? Even everyday sounds can damage hearing

Thermostat protein could help burn off the flab

Astrophile: Two craters that launched 1000 meteoroids

Mayan astronomical tables found daubed on wall

Health

Imaging HIV in infected cells reveals viral tactics

Technology

Interactive ‘wallpaper’ screens are the future of TV

Space

Telerobotics offers third way for space exploration

Technology

DIY circuit turns your alphabet soup into a keyboard

Opinion

Augmented reality offers a new layer of intrigue

Augmented reality – overlaying the real world with digital information – creates challenges but will enrich our lives visually and culturally

Health

Brain rewiring offers slim hope for obesity epidemic

Health

‘Label jars, not people’: Lobbying against the shrinks

Humans

Why gay marriage divides the world

Life

Widen the goal in the search for alien life

Health

The man who gave us risk intelligence

Aperture

Rubber soul: California’s 6-million-tyre mountain

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky explores oil in its industrial and economic context, and its effects on our cultural and social lives

Features

Earth

Dump the pump: When oil will lose its lustre

Oil production may fall in 10 years – not because it is running out but because electric cars will be cheaper and gasoline engines will be better

Life

The incredible flying squid

Health

Change your stomach, change your brain

Technology

Reality respray: The hidden digital world uncloaked

Culture

A history of the insatiably curious

In Curiosity, Philip Ball argues that the root of modern science lies not in deduction but in the experimental curiosity of "natural magicians"

Mixing art and science in Moscow

How does a bee know where it is heading?

Will technology kill humanity?

More

Health

Kinect imaging lets surgeons keep their focus

New device lets surgeons consult medical images during an operation without having to scrub out

Enigma Number 1698

Germany rising

Regulars

Feedback: Chemistry without the chemicals

Chemistry without chemicals, a phone for talking commercial rubbish on, why we should be wary of the chef's surprise, and more

This Week’s Letters

Buzz off

Cell breakdown

Shocking behaviour

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