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This week's magazine

26 October 1996

Issue 2053

New Scientist issue 2053 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.

A suitable survey

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.

Born to trade

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 volcanoes get violent - Some volcanoes explode dramatically while others are content merely to spew their lava down the hillside. Erik Stokstad visited the Greek island of Santorini to find out why

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.

Plastic's power play - It's recyclable, it contains no heavy metals and it can be moulded into all kinds of shapes. The plastic battery has arrived

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.

research: in the field : Heavy weather

Scientists from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan have gathered in the South Island of New Zealand in search of bad weather. They are part of a huge field experiment to measure how mountains influence weather and climate. The project involves the CSIRO research aircraft, weather radar, meteorological balloons and a network of automatic weather …

News

research: in the lab : Smart fibres direct light

News

Scan : John Rice ...downloaded

News

Scan : insect world

News

Scan : greenhouse collection

News

Scan : critical mass

News

bytes : Deakin puts course on the line

News

bytes : changing places

News

Technology

Technology : When a sketch tells a thousand words

News

Technology

Technology : Pioneering TV girls dance again

News

Technology

Patents : The trouble with trademarks

News

Technology

Patents : Mirror, mirror

News

Technology

Patents : What goes up...

News

Technology

Patents : Smart watches

News

Technology

Patents : Liquid test

News

Technology

Patents : Fast ball?

News

Science : Unwanted DNA goes into the garbage disposal

News

Technology

Technology : Machine minds your language

News

Technology

Technology : Naked fruit for lazy shoppers

News

Technology

Netropolitan :

News

Ebola outbreak

News

Passive risk

News

Pirates in the garden of India

News

Science : Does dope block pregnancy?

News

Science : Mystery asteroid was eaten by fire

News

Science : Viral assassin turns on cancer cells

News

Science : Why crickets love a steady male

News

Science : Tumbling gas may cause starquakes

News

Science : Water `rains' on the ringed planet

News

Science : Knotty problem emerges from the looking glass

News

Contamination fears linger as French quit Mururoa

News

Pneumonia runs riot in Brazil's crèches

News

Drivers risk cancer in the cab

News

Superwheat to feed the world

News

If you must drink, take up jogging

News

Radioactive forests will bring power to the people

News

Dengue fever outbreak angers Indian judges

News

Star Wars returns to haunt tomorrow's battlefields

News

Tough gestation for virtual embryo

News

Smoking gun

News

Smile, you're in a beauty contest

News

Horse killer found

News

Sea birds' friends

News

Technology jackpot

News

Breathtaking ozone

News

Congress pulls the plug on Gulf Stream maps

News

…but NASA promises not to hide its face

News

Life on Mars may be too hot to handle…

News

Words alone will not clear smog

News

Smart smugglers outwit the CFC cops

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.

Editorial : Get tough with piracy on the CFCs - NOT before time, governments are starting to talk tough about the smuggling of Russian-made CFCs and the growing black market in the outlawed chemicals among suppliers of coolants for air-conditioning and re

As we reveal (see p 4 ), the smugglers have already got smart, hiding the gases inside dummy cylinders of legal chemicals, and doctoring them to mimic legal substitutes or recycled CFCs, which can be traded legally. In the US, customs authorities have already responded with more sophisticated ways of searching for disguised consignments of …

Opinion

Editorial : New Age on Mars - BACK in 1976 when someone at NASA's news center in Pasadena decided that they needed to generate more press interest in the pictures the Viking orbiter was taking of the Martian surface, they probably didn't realise quite wha

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.

A suitable survey

WHAT the inhabitants of North Sentinel island in the Bay of Bengal call themselves is a mystery. Their beliefs, the language they speak and even the exact number in their community are also unknown. But these questions are closer to being answered since a team of Indian scientists and government officials made the first friendly …

Features

Born to trade

Features

When volcanoes get violent - Some volcanoes explode dramatically while others are content merely to spew their lava down the hillside. Erik Stokstad visited the Greek island of Santorini to find out why

Features

Plastic's power play - It's recyclable, it contains no heavy metals and it can be moulded into all kinds of shapes. The plastic battery has arrived

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.

AustralAsian : Time to tally Asian student contribution - Bob Johnstone talks to a university administrator about enrolment trends

LIKE it or not, the future of science and technology in Australia will depend a great deal on students from overseas and local students born overseas, most of them Asians. According to Fred Smith from La Trobe University, who has just written a paper on the topic, it's time to take stock and work out …

Forum

Forum : You've got to give a little - Vincent Kiernan learns how to hammer out an agreement

Forum

Washington diary : War wounds and publicity eruptions - Andreas Frew reports from the heady heights of Capitol Hill

Forum

Review : Collected works

Books & Arts

Review : Creepy collection

Books & Arts

Review : Prairie politics

Books & Arts

Review : The brain's big bang

Books & Arts

Forum : Don't let them hog the limelight

Forum

Bestsellers : from San Francisco

Books & Arts

Review : Down but not out

Books & Arts

Review : At death's door

Books & Arts

Review : Body of evidence

Books & Arts

Review : Quantum comeback

Books & Arts

Review : Blue story

Books & Arts

Review : Speaking from the other side

Books & Arts

Review : Acceptable risk?

Books & Arts

Review : Geek history

Books & Arts

Review : A universe of one's own

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

WE LEARN from a recent news release that shock absorbers may one day be made of chocolate. The idea is inspired by a curious discovery that comes, so we are told, from Michigan State University. A graduate student in engineering, Christopher R. Daubert, and his professor, James Steffe, found that when a strong enough electric …

Regulars

The Last Word

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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