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This week's magazine

30 November 1996

Issue 2058

New Scientist issue 2058 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.

Think maths

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.

Take a deep breath and blow

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.

No pain, more gain

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.

101 things to do with an old oil rig - Melt it down as scrap? Turn it into a casino? Slice it up and use the bits as oil tanks? Fred Pearce sorts through Shell's options for disposing of Brent Spar

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

Technology : Nuclear catalyst goes for cool burn

TOXIC organic waste can be incinerated at low temperatures with a catalyst made from nuclear waste, says a team of researchers in this week's Nature (vol 384, p 341). The catalyst, which is based on uranium oxide, was developed by Graham Hutchings and Stuart Taylor at the University of Liverpool's Leverhulme Centre for Innovative Catalysis …

News

Technology

Patents : Elixir of life

News

Technology

Patents : Bubbling under

News

Technology

Patents : Stolen moments

News

Technology

Patents : Shattering truth

News

Technology

Patents : Spitting fire

News

Technology

Patents : Cry for help

News

Technology

Netropolitan :

News

Technology

Technology : For video-on-demand, move to Hull

News

Technology

Technology : Crash diet opens Windows to hand-held PCs

News

Technology

Patents : What's in a name?

News

Science : Sex hormone softens the pain

News

Science : Bees play tricks with the light to see at night

News

Technology

Technology : Finishing touch for the bionic arm

News

Technology

Technology : Japan's winter roads are piping hot

News

Technology

Technology : Fermenting faster pints

News

Technology

Netropolitan :

News

Science : The odd thing about carbon . . .

News

Science : Growth blocker stops spinal pain at source

News

Science : Polar lakes watered down by snow

News

Science : Toothy sparkler unearthed in diamond mine

News

Science : Snakes slithered up from the sea

News

Junk food ads target the young

News

Strictly between you, me and Uncle Sam

News

Villagers slam 'Pill for elephants'

News

Satellite sees where the wind blows

News

Chernobyl handout

News

Prostate gene

News

Ozone optimism

News

Upping the anti

News

Earth Centre's woes

News

HRT for dementia

News

Radiation damages

News

Bridge over troubled waters - India and Bangladesh have quarrelled over rights to water from the Ganges for more than two decades. Can they finally agree a deal that would benefit millions?

News

Science : Will a sea change turn up the heat?

News

Science : You must remember Zzzzz...

News

Science : Adoring mums raise calmer pups

News

Science : Why it all sounds like rhubarb in the end

News

Darned good science, but is it any use?

News

Tracks in the snow spell hope for Siberian tiger

News

Danger lurks under the knife

News

Tuna trounces the town mouse

News

Cancer specialists join the rat race

News

Creationism in the dock

News

Clinics admit they take sperm from dead men

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: Where wise men fear to tread

NEVER argue with a fool in public—people might not be able to tell the difference. Such advice would surely be wasted on Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist who has sold his home to take a prominent creationist to court, claiming the videos, tapes and books he sells are deceptive and therefore break Australian trading laws …

Opinion

Editorial : Time to come clean on radiation tests - SHOCK reports that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been carrying out secret radiation experiments on humans for the past forty years have dominated the British media this week.

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.

Think maths

Is mathematics the grand design for the Universe, or merely a figment of the human imagination, asks Ian Stewart

Features

Take a deep breath and blow

Features

No pain, more gain

Features

101 things to do with an old oil rig - Melt it down as scrap? Turn it into a casino? Slice it up and use the bits as oil tanks? Fred Pearce sorts through Shell's options for disposing of Brent Spar

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 : Resource project breaks down Indonesian barriers - Bob Johnstone explores Australia's role in preserving its neighbour's biodiversity

INDONESIA'S biota is not just diverse, it is mega-diverse. Though accounting for just 1.3 per cent of the world's land area, Indonesia is said to be home to 25 per cent of the world's fish species, 17 per cent of its birds, 16 per cent of its reptiles and amphibians, 12 per cent of its …

Forum

Forum : Let's keep the genie in its bottle

Forum

Washington diary : Mudslinging and backpedalling - Andreas Frew reports from the heady heights of Capitol Hill

Forum

Review : Gardner's question time

Books & Arts

Bestsellers : from Oxford

Books & Arts

Review : Collected works

Books & Arts

Forum : Silence of the experts - Fred Pearce wonders why government advisers never admit they were wrong

Forum

Review : Just for the record

Books & Arts

Review : Bright sparks

Books & Arts

Review : X-tensions

Books & Arts

Review : Bon anniversaire

Books & Arts

Review : Written in the sands

Books & Arts

Review : Holy war

Books & Arts

Review : Sex story

Books & Arts

Review : Visible profit (2)

Books & Arts

Review : Dial-up feature

Books & Arts

Review : Popperama

Books & Arts

Review : A look on the small side

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

IT IS with great mortification that we have to confess that this column has unwittingly participated in the dissemination of an urban myth. Arthur Goldstuck, an indefatigable investigative journalist and general debunker, has pieced together how a probable fantasy about a hospital cleaner at Pelonomi Hospital in Free State, South Africa, became accepted around the …

Regulars

The Last Word

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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