Today on New Scientist: 19 March 2012

Noam Chomsky's life in pictures

See the career highlights of Noam Chomsky - linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, activist and one of the world's most influential intellectuals

Out-of-breath cops fail to recognise the perpetrator

A chase or combat could impair police officers' ability to later recall details about an event or people involved

Brain secrets of bee ball assassins uncovered

Watch bees surround a hornet and cook it alive in an experiment probing the brain activity involved

A romantic comedy of environmental folly

In Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Ewan McGregor plays an environmental research scientist who puts aside his better judgement

Universal glue for body cells targets drugs

New molecule sticks to all cells in the body providing a simple and cheap adhesive as well as a delivery stem for targeting drugs to specific cells

Noam Chomsky: Meet the universal man

Why can everyone learn Portuguese? Is Twitter a trivialiser? A whistle-stop tour of our intellectual landscape in the company of Noam Chomsky

Haze clears on ancient Earth's early atmosphere

Our planet flipped back and forth between a thick haze and clear skies 2.5 billion years ago

To rule out god, first get to know him

The new science of religion tells us where secularists are going wrong

The God issue: New science of religion

Can't live with him, can't live without him. In a special series of articles we lay out a new vision that resets the terms of the debate

Designs are as flawed as their designers

Human interactions influence how technology turns out, and not always for the better, argues Henry Petroski in To Forgive Design

Famous astronomer eyes cheap solar power

A new solar energy company, founded by renowned astronomer Roger Angel, aims to produce cheap electricity from the sun

Viking mice marauders swept across northern Europe

Norwegian mice accidentally stowing away on Viking ships conquered almost as many countries as the fearsome humans whose ships they boarded.

Free apps eat up your phone battery just sending ads

Free apps spend most of their power sending targeted adverts - and can drain your cellphone battery in 90 minutes

Stem cell brain injections ease Parkinson's

After receiving injections of human embryonic stem cells, monkeys with tremors and rigidity were able to move smoothly

Jonah snails travel the world inside bird guts

Some snails survive inside bird guts for hours at a time, and travel hundreds of kilometres that way before popping out at the other end

Blood tests won't stop gene cheats

Athletes who use genes to boost the size and efficiency of their muscles will only be caught out if they are forced to provide muscle biopsies

Superfast neutrino claim takes another beating

A further experiment has measured neutrinos' flight time and found that the subatomic particles seem to fly at boring old light speed after all

US judge rules that you can't copyright pi

An extraordinary lawsuit that centred on putting this most beloved string of digits to music has been dismissed

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