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The Summer 2016 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! You can find it in branches of WH Smith at mainline train stations, airports and selected high street stores.

** Summer 2016 launch party on 2 June: get your tickets now **

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Highlights include:

Cover story – Who wants to live forever? Cal Flyn investigates cryonics and the quest for eternal life.

It is the science of stopping the clock for those who die before the ambition (or fantasy?) of immortality can be made into reality. There are three companies currently undertaking this work: Russia’s KrioRus, as well as two American institutions – Alcor in Arizona and the Cryonics Institute in Michigan, which was Sylvia Sinclair’s choice. They promise to store their clients’ remains at extremely cold temperatures in order to render them in a state of suspended animation until the technology becomes available to revive and “reanimate” them at some unknown date in the future

PLUS:

  • How Britain’s immigration detention centres were built, who runs then, and who profits: an investigation by Phil Miller
  • Fiona Sampson on poetry and the rational mind
  • Marcus Chown on the most important development in astronomy since the invention of the telescope
  • What sovereignty means in the modern world: David Nowell Smith on the issues raised by the EU debate
  • Dawn Foster reviews the memoir of convicted murderer Erwin James
  • Marc Bennetts explores how modern Russia is in thrall to the cult of Stalin
  • Alex Macpherson on the quiet radicalism of the pop group Years & Years
  • Interview with Dan Barker, the American fundamentalist preacher who became an atheist
  • Alice Bloch explores the strange world of Ignorance Studies
  • Jonathan Rée on what non-believers can learn from Rowan Williams and St Augustine
  • Andrew Copson on the ancient roots of humanism
  • How the comedy of awkwardness came to dominate our screens, by Mark Fisher
  • Does everything cause cancer? Max Goldman on the vital distinction between hazard and risk
  • Yiannis Baboulias explores the revival of old songs of love and loss in Greece
  • New poems; columns from Michael Rosen and Laurie Taylor; cartoon by Grizelda; book reviews; cryptic crossword and Chris Maslanka's quiz

Get six months of New Humanist for just £1! UK customers, direct debit only. After six months your subscription will continue at the annual rate of £27. You can cancel at any time. Overseas readers can subscribe for £27 a year or take out a digital-only subscription for £10.