Technology Shock tactics to destroy torpedoes THE US navy wants to protect its warships with a system that will destroy incoming torpedoes by firing massive underwater shock waves at them. The ships would be equipped with arrays of 360 transducers each 1 metre square – effectively big flat-panel loudspeakers – running along either side of the hull below the waterline. When … 51¶¯Âþ
Global warming in fiction Where's the science in science fiction? Where indeed, asks SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson , one of the few who work hard to make their stories scientifically sound. All the more scary, then, that the fictional floods that turn Washington DC into Venice in Forty Signs of Rain, the first volume of his near-future eco-saga, … Opinion
Life Reality Wars After two centuries in the ascendancy, the Enlightenment project is under threat. Religious movements are sweeping the globe preaching unreason, intolerance and dogma, and challenging the idea that rational, secular enquiry is the best way to understand the world. Over the next 12 pages, we report from the front line of this conflict. We investigate … Features
Round Up Fruits of labour In August, the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables, Dole Foods, approached four North Carolina universities to help create a biotech research centre in Kannapolis, a small city of 40,000 people near Charlottesville. So far, the plans include an institute for advanced fruit and vegetable science that would work to improve … Careers
Feedback Attack of the killer mice MICE may look cute, but their habits can be somewhat unpleasant. Novice mouse-handlers are often horrified to find that their furry charges have set upon and eaten – or just terminally nibbled – one of their cage-mates. That is probably what happened to the three mice that went missing last … Regulars