Issue 2129 | Magazine cover date: 11 April 1998 | New Scientist

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11 April 1998

Issue 2129

New Scientist issue 2129 cover

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On the cover

Features

Monster sperm

For those in peril

Opinion

Partners in crime

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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.

Monster sperm

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.

Fellini with flippers

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.

Drinking by numbers

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.

To infinity and beyond

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

For those in peril

On 10 April 1912 the Titanic steamed out of Southampton towards its fatal encounter with a North Atlantic iceberg. Even 86 years on, the disaster, in which 1522 people died, still grips the imagination. James Cameron's film Titanic won 11 Oscars in Los Angeles last month. Full details of the awards are at http://www.oscar.com . …

News

Technology

. . .

News

Technology

. . . . .

News

Horns of a dilemma

News

When it's not so good to talk

News

Test tube foals

News

Change of tack

News

Name game

News

You are here

News

Bolshie bees have mean genes

News

Feather mops

News

Clean burn

News

Full house

News

Pest control

News

Cracking RNA

News

Blooming amazing

News

Barren mice

News

Uphill all the way

News

The awful power of silence

News

A real waste

News

Sound like Satchmo

News

Little big disc

News

Too close for comfort

News

Searching questions

News

Corroding colours

News

`Blind' radar scans marsh for heap of old rubbish

News

Toilets to go

News

Technology

Doubles all round

News

Technology

Kinder bullets

News

Technology

Call for help

News

Red alert

News

Why farmers should love the dark

News

Off the wall

News

Why have the birds gone quiet?

News

This way up

News

A flying start

News

It's the fuzz

News

Sticking point

News

Coral killer

News

Driving blind

News

Spam payback

News

Stuck in Havana

News

Getting heavy

News

TB hard cases are revealed in a flash

News

Hit squad

News

Hold the mayo...

News

Air emergency

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.

Partners in crime

AS THE legal net closes in around the tobacco companies, there are definite signs of panic in the air. In the US, smokers are being chased out of offices and public places with a zeal once reserved for rooting out communists, while one former smoker seeking damages has called tobacco companies "the most criminal, disgusting, …

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.

Monster sperm

DEEP within the darkened CAVE, the giant sperm looms. Its monstrous tail curls around and around, snarled in a series of ferocious knots. Under an ordinary microscope, the tangled tail would be an impenetrable blob. But here in the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications near Chicago, a supercomputer first …

Features

Fellini with flippers

Features

Drinking by numbers

Features

To infinity and beyond

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.

Return of the gas guzzler

WHEN it comes to fuel efficiency in cars, a well worn adage seems to apply—what we are gaining on the swings we are losing on the roundabout. I've been reading a report—unexcitingly titled Fuel Consumption Project—prepared for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy by an impressive technical team from the CSIRO, Melbourne University, the …

Forum

May the best man win

Forum

. . .

Forum

Animal antics

Books & Arts

Remapping Earth

Books & Arts

Baby rules

Books & Arts

Coming a cropper

Books & Arts

Pilot dropped

Books & Arts

Obvious, really

Books & Arts

Fact after fiction

Books & Arts

This is the end

Books & Arts

Murdering Montana

Books & Arts

Collected works

Books & Arts

from Oxford

Books & Arts

A picture of confusion

Forum

Sushi to go

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

ON 7 MARCH we expressed our surprise that the website of the Oriental Institute Research Archives only lists "human" authors. What other kind of authors are there, we wondered. Now we learn of a prominent herpetologist who has published a number of papers coauthored with his dog and his chicken. Consider, for example, "Use of …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word