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This week's magazine

5 June 2004

Issue 2450

New Scientist issue 2450 cover
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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.

Space

For the love of Venus

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.

When nerves break down

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.

Felled by fungus

Features
Second rock from the Sun

Space

Second rock from the Sun

Features

Table of contents

News

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.

Technology

Get in the groove to save old sounds

SOUND recorded on antique wax cylinders and early 78 rpm records can now be recovered without damaging the precious, fragile media. This means recordings that archivists have never dared play could be heard for the first time. The trick is to use a high-resolution imaging system to create a computer map of the groove pattern …

News

Technology

The pendant projector

News

Technology

Burn the bomb

News

Technology

Slow cooker

News

Technology

Hack out the useless extras

News

Technology

Why cool flames are a hot prospect

News

Technology

Dancing lasers levitate tomorrow's electronics

News

Technology

Cutting edge

News

Technology

Programs that put your personal details at risk

News

Gas pressure blamed for Italian quakes

News

How birds that banish bugs raise more chicks

News

Baby food could trigger meningitis

News

Life still goes on without 'vital' DNA

News

Blocking HIV

News

Wrong numbers

News

Speedier light could pump up chip power

News

Hidden cost of boosting biodiversity

News

Dinosaurs were broiled alive

News

Wind warns of big waves in record time

News

Light work for crystals

News

Celestial record-breakers

News

How luminescent squid could make your salad safer

News

Soundbites

News

Asthma linked to use of antibiotics

News

No limit to tobacco's harm

News

Technology

Alarm raised over aircraft materials

News

World gears up to stop smuggling

News

Earthshine whips up climate storm

News

Roving season draws to close

News

Tobacco tactics

News

Health

No BSE-free cow

News

New in the world of rodents

News

Asteroids tamed

News

Sex-crime lie tests

News

Cost in space

News

60 Seconds

News

Only a matter of time?

News

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

THREE eminent professors from the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge wrote to The Times recently (21 February) doubting that the Human Tissue Bill now going through Parliament was intended to hinder advances in diagnosis and treatment, but saying they believed that is exactly what its effect would be. The research community, …

Opinion

To the moon and back

Opinion

Space or bust

Opinion

Sudden death

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.

Space

For the love of Venus

This article was first published in the 5 June 2004 issue of New Scientist, at the time of the transit of Venus – the last before 2012.

Features

When nerves break down

Features

Felled by fungus

Features

Space

Second rock from the Sun

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.

Children's champion

The Empty Cradle by Phillip Longman, New America Books/Basic Books, $26, ISBN 0465050506 Reviewed by Fred Pearce THE story is this. Europe is a continent of "fading nations" in which falling birth rates threaten to bring about rampant ageing and a population crash. The US – for this is a book written by and for …

Books & Arts

The Bacon diet

Books & Arts

Real jaw-breakers

Books & Arts

We liked these

Books & Arts

Big smell, big bang

Books & Arts

Scarlet singer

Books & Arts

Everything to play for

Careers

Utopia postponed

Books & Arts

The Earth Machine by Edmond A. Mathez and James D. Webster

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

THE whole point of publishing patents is to make new science and technology more widely available. The world's patent offices now publish patents on the internet. But, as this magazine has noted, they make them ridiculously difficult to find and read (3 April, p 19) . The European Patent Office in Munich, Germany, told us …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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