Issue 1936 | Magazine cover date: 30 July 1994

30 July 1994

Issue 1936

On the cover

Features

Those ears were made for walking: Peering into the inner ear of fossil skulls may help us solve the mystery of when humans first stood up and walked. But, writes Pat Shipman, it may have an even bigger surprise in store

News

Technology: Stop watching TV, just listen

Opinion

Comment: Fallout poisons Pacific islands

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Those ears were made for walking: Peering into the inner ear of fossil skulls may help us solve the mystery of when humans first stood up and walked. But, writes Pat Shipman, it may have an even bigger surprise in store

Features

What a tangled Web they wove...

Features

Making friends with death-wish genes: Persuading renegade cells to do the decent thing and die for the good of the organism could be the next big thing in cancer research, says Kate Douglas

Features

Working Live Wires

Features

News

Technology

Technology: Stop watching TV, just listen

People who like to have the television on while they are doing their household chores could benefit from a system now being tested by the BBC and ITV. Called Audetel, (audio described television), it was originally designed to give visually disabled people the chance to enjoy TV by providing an audible des-cription of what is …

News

Patents: Patent Office fights for independence

News

Patents: Spaced-out stereo

News

Patents: Tug for takeoff

News

Patents: Safety in the shades

News

Patents: Stopping the pops

News

Patents: Get ahead, get a hat

News

Science: Did the Earth ever freeze over?

News

Science: On the fish farm, boys are best

News

Science: Heavy metals found in space

News

Technology

Technology: Software agents to roam phone network

News

Technology

Technology: Biotech shares hit as drugs trials are cut short

News

Technology

Technology: Of oysters, ships and sealing wounds . . .

News

Technology

Technology: Buckyballs add polish to diamond films

News

All gas and guesswork: Nations trying to agree practical steps to combat global warming are finding that they do not have the crucial figures. Fred Pearce reports

News

Pro-lifers attack fetal egg rules

News

Europe's top 100 polluters

News

Altered tomato faces ban from British shops

News

Drivers ignore smog alert

News

Paris 'non' to syringe dispensers

News

Schools need more technology teachers, says engineers

News

Fantasy fish with something to say

News

Unlucky newts

News

Mini-moss

News

Clipper climb-down

News

Clean burn

News

Bad company cars

News

Jobs go extinct

News

Science: Moving target guides drivers round the bend

News

Science: When monster shrimps ruled the world

News

Science: Orchids thrive by being mean

News

Kangaroo caught descending from the trees

News

Doctors fail to recognise fatal brain disease

News

Battered Jupiter shows its wounds

News

Exit Waldegrave, enter Hunt

News

Bitter choice for exiled islanders

News

Fat-laden food from south of the border

News

What a tangled Web they wove...

News

Opinion

Comment: Fallout poisons Pacific islands

Since last December, Americans have been outraged over the emerging story of radiation experiments conducted on people in the US during the Cold War. The people of the Marshall Islands are still waiting for Americans to be outraged on their behalf over the radiation tests of which they were the unwitting subjects (see This Week). …

Opinion

Comment: Africa's crisis

Opinion

Features

Those ears were made for walking: Peering into the inner ear of fossil skulls may help us solve the mystery of when humans first stood up and walked. But, writes Pat Shipman, it may have an even bigger surprise in store

Ever since Plato described humans as 'featherless bipeds', we have recognised walking upright on two legs as a defining characteristic of humankind. The fossil record shows that bipedalism is very ancient, predating tool-making and the evolution of large brains that were once seen as the most fundamental biological adaptations of humankind. Yet precisely when bipedalism …

Features

What a tangled Web they wove...

Features

Making friends with death-wish genes: Persuading renegade cells to do the decent thing and die for the good of the organism could be the next big thing in cancer research, says Kate Douglas

Features

Working Live Wires

Features

Washington Diary: Last words from lawyers and turf accountants Andreas Frew reports from the heady heights of Capitol Hill

Lawyers and medical scientists in the US are at sixes and sevens again over who's to blame, and who's to pay, for the epidemic of problems with silicone breast implants. The implants started to cause medical problems for women in the early 1980s. In 1992 the government decided to take the implants off the market, …

Forum

Forum: Hypnotherapy: who is abusing whom? - It's time to bring practitioners under control, says Phil Bagnall

Forum

Forum: Bigger cars for clearer roads

Forum

Forum: Nuclear inquiries go critical - Ian Lloyd fears that we are burying one of our energy hopes in mounds of reports

Forum

Review: Pressing problems, distant solutions

Books & Arts

Review: Everything but the crown jewels

Books & Arts

Review: Adapt or die

Books & Arts

Review: How water's revolution was betrayed

Books & Arts

Review: Quantum theory's magnificient four

Books & Arts

Review: Five thousand years of certitude

Books & Arts

Review: A home fit for ecowarriors

Books & Arts

Regulars

Feedback

NASA may be able to put a man on the Moon, but it proved less effective at transporting a busload of media people around the Kennedy Space Center earlier this month. Feedback travelled to Florida to see the space shuttle Columbia lift off with its payload of fish, newts, jellyfish and other experimental paraphernalia aboard …

Regulars

This week's magazine

30 July 1994

On the cover

Those ears were made for walking: Peering into the inner ear of fossil skulls may help us solve the mystery of when humans first stood up and walked. But, writes Pat Shipman, it may have an even bigger surprise in store

What a tangled Web they wove...

Making friends with death-wish genes: Persuading renegade cells to do the decent thing and die for the good of the organism could be the next big thing in cancer research, says Kate Douglas

Working Live Wires

Table of contents

News

Technology

Technology: Stop watching TV, just listen

Patents: Patent Office fights for independence

Patents: Spaced-out stereo

Patents: Tug for takeoff

Patents: Safety in the shades

Patents: Stopping the pops

Patents: Get ahead, get a hat

Science: Did the Earth ever freeze over?

Science: On the fish farm, boys are best

Science: Heavy metals found in space

Technology

Technology: Software agents to roam phone network

Technology

Technology: Biotech shares hit as drugs trials are cut short

Technology

Technology: Of oysters, ships and sealing wounds . . .

Technology

Technology: Buckyballs add polish to diamond films

All gas and guesswork: Nations trying to agree practical steps to combat global warming are finding that they do not have the crucial figures. Fred Pearce reports

Pro-lifers attack fetal egg rules

Europe's top 100 polluters

Altered tomato faces ban from British shops

Drivers ignore smog alert

Paris 'non' to syringe dispensers

Schools need more technology teachers, says engineers

Fantasy fish with something to say

Unlucky newts

Mini-moss

Clipper climb-down

Clean burn

Bad company cars

Jobs go extinct

Science: Moving target guides drivers round the bend

Science: When monster shrimps ruled the world

Science: Orchids thrive by being mean

Kangaroo caught descending from the trees

Doctors fail to recognise fatal brain disease

Battered Jupiter shows its wounds

Exit Waldegrave, enter Hunt

Bitter choice for exiled islanders

Fat-laden food from south of the border

What a tangled Web they wove...

Opinion

Comment: Fallout poisons Pacific islands

Comment: Africa's crisis

Features

Those ears were made for walking: Peering into the inner ear of fossil skulls may help us solve the mystery of when humans first stood up and walked. But, writes Pat Shipman, it may have an even bigger surprise in store

What a tangled Web they wove...

Making friends with death-wish genes: Persuading renegade cells to do the decent thing and die for the good of the organism could be the next big thing in cancer research, says Kate Douglas

Working Live Wires

More

Washington Diary: Last words from lawyers and turf accountants Andreas Frew reports from the heady heights of Capitol Hill

Forum: Hypnotherapy: who is abusing whom? - It's time to bring practitioners under control, says Phil Bagnall

Forum: Bigger cars for clearer roads

Forum: Nuclear inquiries go critical - Ian Lloyd fears that we are burying one of our energy hopes in mounds of reports

Review: Pressing problems, distant solutions

Review: Everything but the crown jewels

Review: Adapt or die

Review: How water's revolution was betrayed

Review: Quantum theory's magnificient four

Review: Five thousand years of certitude

Review: A home fit for ecowarriors

Regulars

Feedback

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word