Earth No escape for the oil slick cheats FINDING the tanker responsible for an oil spill can be surprisingly difficult. Malaysian officials are wrestling with the problem after a huge spill in a busy shipping route on 25 June left a 5-kilometre slick off the country's coast. A new software system developed in Australia could soon make the task easier. To identify the … 51¶¯Âþ
Health Stop withholding tried and tested treatments FEW scandals in science are more chilling than those in which patients have been subjected to risky medical experiments without their knowing it. It's a scenario that seems almost unthinkable in these days of ethics boards, oversight committees and whistle-blowers. Yet new research has lifted the lid on just such a scandal, and one that … Opinion
Technology Histories: Napoleon's crazy navy The rumours began in 1798. France and Britain had been at war for five years and now the French army was massing on the Normandy coast. Surrounded by sea, the British had felt safe until now. But Napoleon Bonaparte, alias the Corsican Ogre, had found a way to transport his army of invasion across the … Features
Earth On the trail of the ivory-billed woodpecker THE story has all the features of a boys' adventure yarn. The ivory-billed woodpecker, the largest and most magnificent of its tribe, goes missing at the end of the second world war and is presumed extinct. But rumours persist that a few birds remain in the swampy forests of America's Deep South, like soldiers hiding … Books & Arts
Feedback Those amazing tachyons YET more from the wonderful world of sciency-sounding plugs for unusual products and services. The School of Awakening in Chulmleigh, Devon, UK, informs us promisingly on its website that: "In quantum physics, the energy that fills the cosmos is called zero-point energy." It then launches into hitherto untrodden realms of knowledge with … Regulars