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This week's magazine

18 November 2000

Issue 2265

New Scientist issue 2265 cover

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On the cover

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Caught in the act

Westminster Diary

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Technology

AbortRetryFail AbortRetryFail AbortRetryFail

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 old man of the sea

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.

Greatest myth of all

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.

Blind to change

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.

Space

Caught in the act

A NASA astronomer has spotted one of the most powerful nuclear explosions ever seen in the Universe. Tod Strohmayer from the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, was watching a distant neutron star with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer when the star suddenly erupted. The explosion lasted for three hours and released more energy than …

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Fangs bared

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Swell time ahead, for surfers at least

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A few good men

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Family history

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Desert deluge

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The dope on coke

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Party gear

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Technology

Electoral dysfunction

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Labour day

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The maddening truth about martini glasses

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Think like a teenager

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Tongue testing

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People power

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The truth will out

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Lost in music

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Saved from the big crunch

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Space

Stellar tantrum

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Ready for take-off

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Test 'em all

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LEP's long day closes

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The great dam scam

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Fraud means Japan must rewrite its history

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Polio on the loose

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Technology

Snaps by wire

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Technology

Polished music

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Technology

Loaded dice

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Mind

Reach for the prize

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Cancer to the rescue

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Mind

Fetal exposure

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Mind

Fishing with chips

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What fed the inferno?

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Lying in wait

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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.

Humans

Westminster Diary

ASK any Scot what the island of Islay is famous for and the answer is whisky. An ecologist might mention the migration of Canada geese. But people are now beginning to include "the Limpet", a small power station generating electricity from the waves that roll in from the Atlantic. Michelle Knott eloquently described this development …

Opinion

A sugar-coated bitter pill

Opinion

Death traps

Opinion

It's madness not to test

Opinion

Features

AbortRetryFail AbortRetryFail AbortRetryFail

Technology

AbortRetryFail AbortRetryFail AbortRetryFail

When we depend on computers for everything from spreadsheets to space launchers, shouldn't they at least be reliable? 4 June 1996, Kourou, French Guiana. The maiden flight of the European Space Agency's Ariane 5. Just 40 seconds after take-off, a software fault causes it to veer off-course, and the rocket blows up. The $450 million …

Features

The old man of the sea

Features

Greatest myth of all

Features

Blind to change

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.

How to be seriously odd

Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? by Martin Gardner, W. W. Norton, £18.95, ISBN 0393049639 MARTIN GARDNER is, of course, an icon to those of us who grew up with his mathematical games columns in Scientific American and his classics such as The Annotated Alice (Penguin, £20). One of Gardner's lesser-known but long-standing commitments is …

Books & Arts

From voodoo to virus

Books & Arts

Out of Africa

Books & Arts

Stop weeding

Books & Arts

Simply brilliant.

Books & Arts

Bill Hillier reads

Books & Arts

Mats Williamson reads

Books & Arts

Earthly goods

Books & Arts

Reading till dawn

Books & Arts

Dreaming tomorrow

Books & Arts

Mr Vestiges

Books & Arts

Bite the bullet

Books & Arts

Crystal seer

Books & Arts

Henry Petroski is reading

Books & Arts

Bill Leithead is reading

Books & Arts

Life isn't like that

Books & Arts

Pole position

Books & Arts

Blasted!

Books & Arts

The hunt for Adam and Eve

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

FACTORY emissions and disappearing forests have been identified as major forces in climate change. Now researchers have discovered a new factor—Harry Potter. According to a paper published this October in IEEE Spectrum magazine entitled "Harry Potter and the health of the environment", more than a quarter of a million copies of Harry Potter and the …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word