Enigma: Forty-eight squares THE aim of this Enigma is to place the numbers 1 through 48 into the 48 squares of this 4 × 12 rectangle so that consecutive numbers touch each other either by being above and below each other or by being to the left and the right of each other. The two numbers already inserted … News
Behind the Noble glitz WINNING a Nobel prize is perhaps the closest thing to deification that a scientist can expect in this life. That might explain why the ceremonies surrounding the presentation of the 1994 Nobel prizes in Stockholm last week bordered on the religious. At the start of the Nobel banquet, the year's prizewinners were led arm-in-arm with … Opinion
Collapse of the Golden City THE NIGHT train steams through the Rajasthani desert and judders to a halt at Jaisalmer, the end of the line. Dozens of weary, dusty backpackers and Indian tourists descend to catch their first glimpse of the fortified Golden City, once a stronghold of Rajput warrior-princes. In seconds, a swarm of hustling youths in T-shirts and … Features
Looking gift-horses in the mouth ONE of the most serious environmental disasters in the making is the corroding of numerous pipelines in the former Soviet Union. The catastrophic spill from a pipeline near the town of Usinsk, West Siberia, just south of the Arctic Circle, could be just a foretaste of what is in store (This Week, 5 November). The … Forum
Feedback SCIENCE fiction writer Frederik Pohl recently attended the three-day celebration of astronomer Carl Sagan's 60th birthday at Cornell University. He tells us that 300 of Sagan's friends attended the occasion, and several gave papers to honour the occasion. One of these, former Soviet rocket scientist Roald Sagdeev, took the opportunity to explain why the proposed … Regulars