5 June 2010 | NewScientist | 3

The avatar revolution

EDITORIAL

What it means to be human may alter when your digital self takes on a life of its own

On NewScientist.com

Tread carefully in immunity’s shadows

A game of two heights

“Your avatar could become a more universal you than the you yourself are willing to reveal”

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June round-up In this month’s edition, see how smell gets up a shark’s nose, illusions that occur when we look at ambiguous scenes, and how science could help soccer stars bring home the World Cup

BIOMED A spoonful of GIV3727

helps the medicine go down

A bitter-blocking chemical could take the aftertaste out of artificial sweeteners and make unpleasant-tasting antibiotics easier to swallow

TECH Giant airship to carry

science back to the 1930s

E-Green Technologies’ blimp, due to launch in the next few months, harks back to the glory days of the Zeppelin, though it is only a quarter of the size. The airship’s first payload will be a soil moisture experiment: watch our video of the blimp being inflated

BIOMED How does acupuncture

work? It stimulates the release of natural painkillers, researchers claim, providing a physiological mechanism

for how the ancient Chinese treatment might work

INNOVATION Beating the biogas

bogey Methane-capture technology could have a dramatic impact on global warming. But developing such technologies won’t be easy

SPACE Aircraft smashes

record for longest scramjet

flight A sleek aircraft called the X-51A WaveRider has set the record for the longest hypersonic flight

using an air-breathing scramjet engine. The craft smashed the record set by NASA’s X-43 vehicle. Watch the video

ZOOLOGGER Velvet worm

spews ‘sticky glass’ on prey

Small insects be warned: Euperipatoides rowelli is on the hunt, and it has a unique method of immobilising you

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