Hard to gasp CHILDREN routinely misreport asthma symptoms, suggesting that fewer people suffer from the disease than thought. Julian Crane from the University of Otago's Wellington School of Medicine, New Zealand, and his team asked 300,000 children aged 13 to 14 in 38 countries if they ever wheezed. He then showed them a video of a real asthma … 51¶¯Âþ
Humans Westminster diary I AM deeply alarmed at the news that many British service people and reservists in the Gulf are unwilling to submit themselves to inoculations. In particular, they are reluctant to undergo simultaneous vaccination against anthrax and smallpox. Lewis Moonie, the junior defence minister, had told me last year that these injections would be spaced out. … Opinion
The man who sold the sun "It has been a favorite pastime for the dreary gentlemen who juggle with statistics, solemnly to calculate the date on which we shall all freeze to death from exhaustion of the coal supply," Harper's Weekly noted dryly in 1903. It was not a new worry even then, for Britain's geologists had been summoned to Parliament … Features
Albert through the ages The Einstein Scrapbook by Ze'ev Rosenkranz, Johns Hopkins University Press, $22.50/£16.50, ISBN 0801872030 Reviewed by Roy Herbert This is pure enjoyment. The Einstein Scrapbook contains, of course, a short and good biography and concise summaries of Einstein's most famous work and his other contributions to science, as well as his involvement in world politics and … Books & Arts
Feedback THE FIRST Windows cellphones are now going on sale, thanks to a deal struck between Microsoft and cellphone operator Orange in 21 countries. The new Smartphone works like an ordinary mobile phone but also uses Windows to surf the Web and download music, pictures, movies and games. Orange's executive vice-president Richard Brennan claims that the … Regulars