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This week's magazine

2 December 1995

Issue 2006

New Scientist issue 2006 cover
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On the cover

Features

Spheres of influence

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Enigma 851

Opinion

How low can we go?
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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.

Spheres of influence

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 way of logic

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.

Plague fiction

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.

Please extinguish your laptop

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.

Enigma 851

Age-old question THE CLASS kept pestering the teacher to tell them her age. So she gave them a numerical exercise leading to it. She wrote two whole numbers on the board which, as she told the class, added together gave the square of her age. Most of the class then correctly worked out her age, …

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Growth factors wire the brain for vision

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Rare dwarfs unzip tumour mystery

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Evolution's big bang explained

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Technology

Cancer squad targets 'immortal' gene

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Technology

It's good to talk … to your rightful owner

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Technology

Fill 'em full of tungsten

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Technology

Keeping better track of trains

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Technology

Netropolitan – your own home page

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Technology

Netropolitan – free space

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Technology

Netropolitan – where to find us

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Technology

How to switch off the madding crowd

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Technology

Take the plunge into virtual art

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Technology

Tiny worm turns into a fly killer

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Technology

Tricks of the light foil digital data tappers

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Burns heal faster with insulin

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Shapely polymers go electronic

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Cosa Nostra cuckoos rule by terror

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'Old faithful' erupts in space

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Supercool theory solves hot ice cream puzzle

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Hawking throws Higgs into black holes

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Kenya's little miracle

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A taste for Swede

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Nuclear bombshell

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Lethal turnaround

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Frozen organs

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Can't give it away …

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Ghost town

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Fault finding on the roof of the world

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Great and good join forces for world peace

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Canadian conservation plans scorned

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Trouble in the wind over altered soya beans

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Stone Age carving is just a modern fake

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Green consumers need incentives

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Please don't cuddle the koalas

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Virtual woman goes online

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Clash over radiation safety limits

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Snub for tobacco industry research

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Indonesian ban wrecks ocean experiments

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Shark extract takes a bite out of sexual diseases

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Why shopping trips end in tears for the kids

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Terrifying outlook for Chernobyl's babies

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The particle now leaving platform 4 …

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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.

How low can we go?

HOW low must a dose of radiation be before it can be considered safe? For the past few decades, most radiation biologists would have answered that there is no totally safe level. Of course, they would agree that the lower the exposure to radiation, the smaller the risk of damage and of developing cancers such …

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.

Spheres of influence

TINY sea creatures create intricate, microscopic structures which have long been the envy of materials scientists. Marine organisms such as radiolarians, diatoms and coccolithophores make themselves delicate shells out of silica or calcium carbonate with exquisite, infinitely varied designs. Now scientists believe they have discovered some of nature's architectural secrets and are using them to …

Features

The way of logic

Features

Plague fiction

Features

Please extinguish your laptop

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.

A little less night music

AS an MP, I hold weekend surgeries when my constituents can air their problems with me. Thirty years ago tiffs with the neighbours were few and far between. Today, there is a constant stream of them. Are we less tolerant and more belligerent now? Well, perhaps both. But I am certain that one of the …

Forum

New Zealand reforms come at a cost

Forum

That's the way the cookie crumbles

Forum

Bestsellers from London

Books & Arts

A bird in the pot or two in the bush?

Forum

Getting to grips with the aliens

Books & Arts

Collected works

Books & Arts

Axe to culture

Books & Arts

Nature study

Books & Arts

Out there?

Books & Arts

Home health

Books & Arts

Hypochondriacs, read on

Books & Arts

Darwinism made too simple

Books & Arts

Who cares?

Books & Arts

The eyes have it

Books & Arts

Rocks and roll

Books & Arts

Evolution by numbers

Books & Arts

Bomb culture

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.

Feedback

IT WAS recently reported in The Scotsman that up to 2500 tonnes of nuclear waste had been deposited on top of a million-tonne dump of Second World War munitions in a stretch of sea no more than ten kilometres off the southwest coast of Scotland called Beauforts Dyke (see "Danger from the deep", 51¶¯Âþ, …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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