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This week's magazine

20 October 1990

Issue 1739

New Scientist issue 1739 cover
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Editor's picks

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Confused over personal communications: Industry's eagerness to meet the demand for mobile telephones has led to incompatible technologies and frustrated subscribers. As they prepare to launch the next genertion of services, telecommunications companies h

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Up in the air: Two new families of chemicals, the HFCs and the HCFCs, are being introduced as benign replacements for ozone-damaging CFCs. But scientists are still unsure of what the substitutes might do to the terrestrial environment

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The hidden museums of the Mediterranean: Despite decades of plundering, the sea bed of the Mediterranen remains the last great repository of archaeological knowledge from the ancient world. Now underwater archaeologists are revealing its secrets

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Tuatara sheds its fossil image

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

If rabies comes to Britain: European scientists are vaccinating foxes to try to halt the spread of rabies. But culling may be the only effective strategy for Britain, should rabies cross the Channel

Features

Table of contents

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New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Technology

Technology: Dutch digital cassette does battle with DAT

A NEW type of audio cassette which is the same size and shape as a conventional cassette but records digital sound like a compact disc has been launched by Philips, the Dutch electronics company. The new digital compact cassette (DCC) will be a direct competitor to digital audio tape, or DAT, a system which uses …

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Technology

Technology: A car for the future, modelled in bricks

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Technology

Technology: Tritium powers a solid source of light

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Science: Omnivorous crabs learn about bad food

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Science: Goodbye to solar WIMPs

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Technology

Technology: Danish wind farms head out to sea

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Technology

Technology: The high cost of finding a phone number

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Technology

Technology: Germany reveals plans for flying into space - Helen Gavaghan reports from the Congress of the International Astronautical Federation

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Technology

Technology: Battered satellite reveals errors on the ground

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Technology

Technology: Lasers blast a path through orbiting litter

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Congressional cuts

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Star witness

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Heterosexual AIDS

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Science: The death of the 'Great Attractor'

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Science: Giant bubble of gas rises through Saturn's atmosphere

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Science: How to 'fine-tune' a superconductor

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Science: Ageing satellite keeps tabs on the ozone layer

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Science: Australian mounds - Birds' nests or Aboriginal middens?

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Four legs remain faster than two

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Steamrollered treasure

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Saving the earth

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Super agency for the environment

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Congress fights to reverse electronics sale to Japan

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Case of the stuffed sandpiper leaves museums in a pickle

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Tokyo's green plan

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Healthy coffee

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Germany applies brakes to Europe's space plans

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Europe changes tack on transgenic animals

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Defence workers press for action on cancer claims

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French come clean on green issues

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Off-the-shelf technologies to cool the planet

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Cash crisis could crash university's computers

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AIDS in Africa: AIDS vaccine 'may not work' in Africa

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Darwin may founder on the Great Barrier Reef

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Legionnaire's threat from power station

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Ranching of rarities angers ecologists

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Opinion

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Talking Point: Why Hubble is really a success story

There's nothing the media likes better than a good knocking story. The press and television around the world have had a field day in recent weeks putting the boot into the Hubble Space Telescope, with its misshapen mirror. 'The Hobbled Space Telescope' is just about the kindest headline I've come across. But the criticism is …

Opinion

Comment: Of mice and morals

Opinion

Comment: Watch this space

Opinion

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Confused over personal communications: Industry's eagerness to meet the demand for mobile telephones has led to incompatible technologies and frustrated subscribers. As they prepare to launch the next genertion of services, telecommunications companies h

Mobil phones linked by radiowaves are now a way of life. The clear trend for the future is away from wires, even where wire connections are available. Many people already use first generation cordless phones, or 'radio tails', that allow them to wander around the house or office. Others have cellular telephones, or cellphones, that …

Features

Up in the air: Two new families of chemicals, the HFCs and the HCFCs, are being introduced as benign replacements for ozone-damaging CFCs. But scientists are still unsure of what the substitutes might do to the terrestrial environment

Features

The hidden museums of the Mediterranean: Despite decades of plundering, the sea bed of the Mediterranen remains the last great repository of archaeological knowledge from the ancient world. Now underwater archaeologists are revealing its secrets

Features

Tuatara sheds its fossil image

Features

If rabies comes to Britain: European scientists are vaccinating foxes to try to halt the spread of rabies. But culling may be the only effective strategy for Britain, should rabies cross the Channel

Features

More

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Forum: One science, two cultures - Beyond the laboratory

NY DISCUSSION on the problems facing researchers in the Third World usually starts with an assumption that the underlying factors motivating scientists and regulating their behaviour are the same throughout the scientific world. 51¶¯Âþs are motivated by curiosity, and subscribe to a certain standard of behaviour which includes a willingness to cooperate and share results. …

Forum

Forum: A mounting mountain - Used tyres are the latest world menace

Forum

Forum: All in a day's eating - The art of keeping a food diary

Forum

Forum: Another wrong number - Who is on the line

Forum

Thistle Diary - Comment from Westminster: Ammonia and acid remarks

Forum

Review: Gyroscopes remain the strangest of attractors

Books & Arts

Review: Rock around the landscapes

Books & Arts

Review: American Landsat satellites

Books & Arts

Arts: The art of technology

Books & Arts

Forum: A time for every catastrophe - The fourth dimension of ecology

Forum

Review: Mother's ruin provides the best tipple

Books & Arts

Review: The status of motherhood

Books & Arts

Regulars

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Ariadne

There is an exhibition running in London now of artworks commissioned for the 1951 Festival of Britain. That was a time when the public were being given glimpses of what science had contributed to the war effort and when science and scientists were popularly supposed to be the key to a bright, prosperous future for …

Regulars

Feeedback

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

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